Temporally resolved characterization of shock-heated foam target with Al absorption spectroscopy for fast electron transport study

The CH foam plasma produced by a laser-driven shock wave has been characterized by a temporally resolved Al 1s-2p absorption spectroscopy technique. A 200 mg/cm3 foam target with Al dopant was developed for this experiment, which used an OMEGA EP [D. D. Meyerhofer et al., J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 244, 032010 (2010)] long pulse beam with an energy of 1.2 kJ and 3.5 ns pulselength. The plasma temperatures were inferred with the accuracy of 5 eV from the fits to the measurements using an atomic physics code. The results show that the inferred temperature is sustained at 40–45 eV between 6 and 7 ns and decreases to 25 eV at 8 ns. 2-D radiation hydrodynamic simulations show a good agreement with the measurements. Application of the shock-heated foam plasma platform toward fast electron transport experiments is discussed.