Dynamic high pressure generation through plasma implosion driven by an intense laser pulse

Abstract

When an intense laser pulse is loaded upon solids, very high impact pressure can be generated on the surface. In this letter, we simulate this process through one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation and find that the pressure as high as 0.13 TPa can be generated after the laser pulse with intensity 1015 W/cm2 and 5 picosecond duration is injected upon a nanometer solid-density plasma. The peak pressure is shown to be resulted from an energetic high-density plasma bunch, produced through plasma implosion under extremely high light pressure.