Speaker
Description
Hydrodynamic instabilities and mixing play a fundamental role in inertial confinement fusion and more generally in the development of strongly shocked plasma flows. However, due to the limitations provided by laser-generated X-ray sources, it is difficult to probe hydrodynamic instabilities and mixing with sufficient resolution at high power laser facilities to visualize the onset of such microphysics and connect it to the later time developments.
With their extreme source brilliance, hard X-ray free electron lasers provide novel capabilities to probe laser-matter interaction [1]. We present here recent developments in hard X-ray small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) to probe submicron-scale structures in addition to grating interferometry [2,3,4] to enable differential phase contrast imaging and dark field imaging in laser-driven shocked foams while still preserving absorption-based radiographs. We will discuss in particular how SAXS combined together with advanced radiography methods enables a more refined description of extreme dynamics in laser-driven shock compression experiments [5].
Novel analysis methods will be demonstrated on recent datasets acquired at both MEC instrument (LCLS) and HED instrument (EuXFEL) to illustrate how SAXS, differential phase contrast imaging and dark field imaging enable to advance our understanding of micro-physics and mixing in laser-driven shocked foams and instabilities such as Rayleigh-Taylor.
This work was supported by IFE-STAR issued as SLAC FWP 101126 and FWP100182, DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This work has also been supported by a research grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (No. PID2022-137632OB-I00) and German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space - Project VANLIFE - within Fusion 2040 program. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of U.S. Department of Energy (Contract No. 89233218CNA000001
[1] A. Laso Garcia et al 2026 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 68 035027
[2] M.P. Valdivia et al, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 93, 115102 (2022)
[3] E. Galtier et al, Scientific Reports, 15(1), 7588, (2025).
[4] V. Bouffetier et al, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 96, 123508 (2025)
[5] C. Parisuana et al, Phys. Plasmas 32, 082707 (2025)