New probing techniques of radiative shocks

Radiative shock waves propagating in xenon at a low pressure have been produced using 60 joules of iodine laser ( λ = 1.315 μm) at PALS center. The shocks have been probed by XUV imaging using a Zn X-raylaser ( λ = 21 nm) generated with a 20-ns delay after the shock creating pulse. Auxiliary high-speed silicon diodes allowed performing space- and time-resolved measurement of plasma self-emission in the visible and XUV. The results show the generation of a shock wave propagating at 60 km/s preceded by a radiative precursor. This demonstrates the feasibility of radiative shock generation using high power infrared lasers and the use of XRL backlighting as a suitable diagnostic for shock imaging.