The principle of laser shock compression is to focus a high-power laser (few ns pulse length) on target, where the plasma expansion, generated by the laser irradiation, will generate a shock wave inside the studied sample.

In order to constrain the pressure and temperature reached during the shock, two conventional diagnostics are usually installed, the VISAR (Velocity Interferometer System for Any Reflector) and the SOP (Streak Optical Pyrometer). These two time-resolved diagnostics are giving information on the pressure and the temperature during the shocked state, respectively.

In addition to these thermodynamic diagnostics, the newly developed short-pulse and high brilliance X-ray sources, such as the LCLS (Linac Coherent Light Source) in Stanford or the ESRF (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility) in Grenoble, could be combined with laser-driven shock compression in order to probe in situ the properties of matter brought under extreme pressure and temperature during only few nanoseconds.

Updated on 20 March 2023