An advanced type of hydrodynamic stable plasma targets with homogeneous distribution of plasma parameters has been proposed for application in experiments on heavy ion stopping in plasmas and relativistic laser based particle acceleration. Plasma was created via x-ray heating of polymer aerogels with a mean density 103 times lower than that of solid matter. Hydrodynamic and radiation properties of low-density polymer aerogels heated by x-rays, which were generated due to laser interaction with a gold hohlraum, have been investigated experimentally and numerically. In experiments carried out at the PALS laser facility in Prague, the parameters of the hohlraum based soft x-ray source and the fraction of x-ray energy absorbed by foam layers have been measured. The results of these experiments and numerical simulations show that the x-ray heat process occurs via propagation of supersonic radiation driven heat waves. The measured heat wave velocity of 107 cm s−1 allows one to estimate the plasma temperature reached as 25 eV. The hydrodynamic stability of x-ray heated plasma layers has been demonstrated by means of an optical streak camera viewing the plasma expansion process. Simulations of the foam heating process denote rather homogeneous distribution of the plasma temperature and density in the x-ray heated plasma layer and sharp plasma boundaries. The investigated features of such plasma targets are a great advantage for experiments with heavy ion and relativistic laser beams.
Dynamics of ultrafast heated radiative plasmas driven by petawatt laser light