Search for Rayleigh-Taylor instability in laser irradiated layered thin foil targets

Abstract

An experiment to measure the Rayleigh-Taylor instability at the vacuum-ablation surface of laser irradiated layered targets by time resolved X-ray spectroscopy is described. The time taken to burn through a layer of material is measured to be the same for massive targets as for thin foil accelerating targets. It is inferred that the thin foil targets might be Rayleigh-Taylor stable despite the values of gamma t approximately 15 calculated from classical theory.