Laser ablation physics and hydrodynamic code simulation validation from picosecond to nanosecond pulse duration

We report on a series of experiments spanning multiple energy regimes ranging from microJoules to hundreds of Joules and pulse lengths ranging from picosecond to nanosecond. These experiments were conducted to provide experimental data to validate hydrodynamic code simulations and to study ablation physics. The data discussed here includes experiments conducted from 10^10 to 10^13 W/cm2 peak laser intensity, from 1w (infrared) to 2w (green) laser wavelength, and across tamped and untamped samples consisting of tamper materials like sapphire, lithium fluoride, coverslip glass, and Teflon. The target materials consist of either aluminum or silicon and the experiments mentioned here include a small scale tabletop laser experiment, a reanalysis of data taken at LCLS at SLAC, and larger user-facility experiments. With this data, we hope to improve our understanding of laser ablation and how it scales as a function of wavelength and intensity. We further report on efforts to use these data sets to validate two radiation hydrodynamic simulation codes, FLASH and DRACO. LLNL-ABS-855975.