Radiation Heat Waves in Gold Plasma

Eight beams 0.35μm laser with pulse duration of about 1.0 ns and energy of 260 J per beam was injected into a cylindrical cavity to generate intense x-ray radiation on the “Shengguang II”high power laser facility. Gold foils with a thickness in the range of 0.09-0.52μm were attached on the diagnostic hole of the cavity and ablated by the intense x-ray radiation. The propagating radiation heat wave in the high-Z gold plasma was observed clearly. For comparison, we also simulated the experimental results.