Dennis L. Paisley

Laser-launched flyer plate and confined laser ablation for shock wave loading: Validation and applications

We present validation and some applications of two laser-driven shock wave loading techniques: laser-launched flyer plate and confined laser ablation. We characterize the flyer plate during flight and the dynamically loaded target with temporally and spatially resolved diagnostics. With transient imaging displacement interferometry, we demonstrate that the planarity (bow and tilt) of the loading induced by a spatially shaped laser pulse is within 2-7 mrad (with an average of 4+/-1 mrad), similar to that in conventional techniques including gas gun loading. Plasma heating of target is negligible, in particular, when a plasma shield is adopted. For flyer plate loading, supported shock waves can be achieved. Temporal shaping of the drive pulse in confined laser ablation allows for flexible loading, e.g., quasi-isentropic, Taylor-wave, and off-Hugoniot loading. These techniques can be utilized to investigate such dynamic responses of materials as Hugoniot elastic limit, plasticity, spall, shock roughness, equation of state, phase transition, and metallurgical characteristics of shock-recovered samples.

TRIDENT high-energy-density facility experimental capabilities and diagnostics

The newly upgraded TRIDENT high-energy-density (HED) facility provides high-energy short-pulse laser-matter interactions with powers in excess of 200 TW and energies greater than 120 J. In addition, TRIDENT retains two long-pulse (nanoseconds to microseconds) beams that are available for simultaneous use in either the same experiment or a separate one. The facilitys flexibility is enhanced by the presence of two separate target chambers with a third undergoing commissioning. This capability allows the experimental configuration to be optimized by choosing the chamber with the most advantageous geometry and features. The TRIDENT facility also provides a wide range of standard instruments including optical, x-ray, and particle diagnostics. In addition, one chamber has a 10 in. manipulator allowing OMEGA and National Ignition Facility (NIF) diagnostics to be prototyped and calibrated.

Laser-launched flyer plates for shock physics experiments

The TRIDENT laser was used to launch Cu, Ga, and NiTi flyers from poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) substrates, coated with thin (∼micron) layers to absorb the laser energy, confine the plasma, and insulate the flyer. The laser pulse was ∼600ns long, and the flyers were 50 to 250μm thick and 4 mm in diameter. With an energy of 10–20 J, speeds of several hundred meters per second were obtained. Simulations were performed of the flyer launch process, using different models. The simulations reproduced the magnitude of the flyer speed and qualitative variations with drive energy and design parameters, but systematically overpredicted the flyer speed. The most likely explanation is that some of the laser energy was deposited in the transparent substrate, reducing the amount available for acceleration. The deceleration of the flyer was measured on impact with a PMMA window. Given the equation of state and optical properties of PMMA, the deceleration allowed points to be deduced on the principal Hugoniot of Cu. Th...

Characterization of Incipient Spall Damage in Shocked Copper Multicrystals

Correlations between spall damage and local microstructure were investigated in multicrystalline copper samples via impact tests conducted with laser-driven plates at low pressures (2—6 GPa). The copper samples had a large grain size as compared to the thickness, which was either 200 or 1000 μm, to isolate the effects of microstructure on the local response. Velocity interferometry was used to measure the bulk response of the free-surface velocity of the samples to monitor traditional spall tensile failure and to examine heterogeneities on the shock response due to microstructure variability from sample to sample. The shock pressure, dynamic yield strength and spall strength were determined from the measured velocity history via standard hydrodynamic approximations, while the effect of strength was explored via 1D hydrocode calculations. Electron Backscattering Diffraction, both in-plane and through-thickness, was used to relate crystallography to the presence of porosity around microstructural features such as grain boundaries and triple points. It was found that the dynamic yield strength measured from velocity histories in different samples correlated well with the crystallographic dependence reported for the dynamic yield strength in single crystals. Transgranular damage dominated in thin specimens with 230 μm grain size, where porosity appeared close to, but not exactly at, grain boundaries. However, a transition to dominant intergranular damage was observed as the grain size was reduced to 150 μm. Thick specimens (450 μm grain size) showed both modes, with intergranular damage found mostly where grains were smaller than average and the sites for preferred damage nucleation in these samples included grain boundaries and triple points. In particular, twin boundaries, especially tips of terminated twins, showed a large mismatch in surface displacements on the diagnostic surface as compared to the surrounding grains as well as a tendency for damage localization on the through-thickness sections.

Laser-induced shock waves in condensed matter: some techniques and applications

Laser-induced shock waves in condensed matter have important applications in dynamic material studies and high pressure physics. We briefly review some techniques in laser-induced shock waves, including direct laser drive, laser-launched flyer plate, quasi-isentropic loading, point and line imaging velocity interferometry, transient X-ray diffraction, spectroscopy and shock recovery, and their applications to study of equation of state, spallation, and phase transitions.

Laser-driven flat plate impacts to 100 GPA with sub-nanosecond pulse duration and resolution for material property studies

Miniature laser-driven flat plates (<1-mm diam {times} 0.5--10{mu}m thick, typical) of aluminum, cooper, tungsten, and other materials are accelerated to {le}5 km/s. These miniature plates are used to generate one-dimensional shock waves in solids, liquids, and crystals. Dynamic measurements of spall strength at strain rates {le}10{sup 7} s{sup {minus}1}, elastic-plastic shock wave profiles in 10-{mu}m-thick targets, shocked free-surface acceleration of 10{sup 12} m/s{sup 2}, and laser-driven plate launch accelerations of 10{sup 10} m/s{sup 2} are routinely obtained. The small size of the sample of and projectile mass permits recovery of targets without additional unintended damage or energy deposited into the test specimen. These miniature plates can be launched with conventional 1-J laboratory lasers. 10 refs., 5 figs.

Dynamic response of materials on subnanosecond time scales, and beryllium properties for inertial confinement fusion

During the past few years, substantial progress has been made in developing experimental techniques capable of investigating the response of materials to dynamic loading on nanosecond time scales and shorter, with multiple diagnostics probing different aspects of the behavior. These relatively short time scales are scientifically interesting because plastic flow and phase changes in common materials with simple crystal structures—such as iron—may be suppressed, allowing unusual states to be induced and the dynamics of plasticity and polymorphism to be explored. Loading by laser-induced ablation can be particularly convenient: this technique has been used to impart shocks and isentropic compression waves from ∼1to200GPa in a range of elements and alloys, with diagnostics including line imaging surface velocimetry, surface displacement (framed area imaging), x-ray diffraction (single crystal and polycrystal), ellipsometry, and Raman spectroscopy. A major motivation has been the study of the properties of be...

Microstructure morphology of shock-induced melt and rapid resolidification in bismuth

With the growing importance of nanotechnology, there is increased emphasis on rapid solidification processing to produce materials microstructures with a finer length scale. However, few studies have focused on the question of how a material restructures itself on the microstructural scale when it refreezes at very high cooling rates. Here we report on the development of microstructures in pure bismuth metal as it is subjected to rapid shock-driven melting and subsequent resolidification (on release of pressure), where the estimated effective undercooling rates are on the order of 1010K∕s, orders of magnitude faster than any achieved before in bulk material. Microscopic examination of the recovered material indicates that the melting transformation was far from homogeneous, and substantial morphological changes are observed compared to the starting microstructure.

Role of spall in microstructure evolution during laser-shock-driven rapid undercooling and resolidification

We previously reported [Colvin et al., J. Appl. Phys. 101, 084906 (2007)] on the microstructure morphology of pure Bi metal subjected to rapid laser-shock-driven melting and subsequent resolidification upon release of pressure, where the estimated effective undercooling rates were of the order of 109–1010 K/s. More recently, we repeated these experiments, but with a Bi/Zn alloy (Zn atomic fraction of 2%–4%) instead of elemental Bi and with a change in target design to suppress spall in the Bi/Zn samples. We observed a similar microstructure morphology in the two sets of experiments, with initially columnar grains recrystallizing to larger equiaxed grains. The Bi samples, however, exhibited micron-scale dendrites on the spall surfaces, whereas there were no dendritic structures anywhere in the nonspalled Bi/Zn, even down to the nanometer scale as observed by transmission electron microscopy. We present the simulations and the interferometry data that show that the samples in the two sets of experiments fol...

Thermodynamically complete equations of state for nickel-titanium alloy

A thermodynamically complete equation of state for the compression and heating of near-equiatomic Ni–Ti alloy in the CsCl (B2) structure was predicted, based on quantum-mechanical calculations of the electron ground states and a Gruneisen lattice-thermal model. The quantum-mechanical calculations used ab initio pseudopotentials and the local-density approximation; the accuracy of the calculations was investigated for elemental Ni and Ti. These calculations demonstrated that simple averaging techniques do not provide an accurate prediction of the properties of metal alloys, and rigorous treatment of the electron wave functions is needed. Predictions were also made of the behavior of NiTi under uniaxial loading. The pressure-density relation obtained from isotropic compression did not match the mean pressure calculated from uniaxial compression, demonstrating that it is not generally accurate to split the stress response of a material into a scalar equation of state and a stress deviator according to the us...