Single spatial mode experiments on initial laser imprint on direct-driven planar targets

Flat plastic targets were directly irradiated and accelerated by partially coherent light from the GEKKO XII laser [Yamanaka , IEEE J. Quantum Electron. QE-17, 1639 (1981)] with the wavelength of 0.53 mum in order to investigate initial laser imprinting. The growth of the perturbation imprinted on the target by an initial foot pulse modulated with a single spatial frequency was observed by the face-on x-ray backlight technique. Imprint levels produced by the foot beam with a stationary intensity modulation of the illumination profile and with a dynamically changing modulation were successfully obtained by an image relay technique and the improved two-wavelength Young's interference method. Simple analytic models are proposed and compared with the experimental results. Stationary imprinting with perturbation wavelength longer than the target thickness is found to be well described by a simple incompressible model. The dynamic dependence of the imprint on the time scale of the temporal illumination profile is found to be qualitatively explained by linear perturbation analysis. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.