1. The study of shock-compressed condensed matter by use of advanced light sources.
- Author
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Wark, Justin S.
- Subjects
- *
FREE electron lasers , *LASER plasmas , *PHASE change materials , *LIGHT sources , *SIGNAL-to-noise ratio - Abstract
The past half a century has seen a revolution in our understanding of how the rapid compression of matter via shock or quasi-isentropic compression operates at the lattice level. Much of this understanding has come about due to the development of short pulse sources of x-rays that provide diffraction patterns on timescales short compared with the duration of the compression pulse to traverse the sample. Such diffraction data has yielded fundamental information on how materials relax, via plastic flow, towards the hydrostatic state, despite the compression process being at heart uniaxial in strain, as well a wealth of information about how materials change polymorphic phase under said compression. It should be noted that these two phenomena are not necessarily separate. Such sources originally included x-ray diodes, but the main ones now used comprise either laser-produced plasmas (LPPs), synchrotrons, or Free Electron Lasers (FELs). Owing to the large laser energies available at several laser facilities world-wide, LPPs have been used to obtain diffraction patterns from condensed matter at extremely high pressures, well into the TPa regime. On the other hand, whilst to date the optical compression drivers situated alongside synchrotrons and FELs are of insufficient capacity to reach the TPa level, the temporal resolution, purity, and signal to noise ratios that can be achieved in the diffraction data provides distinct advantages. Here we provide a brief history of some of the main developments in the field, and offer some perspective on future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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