Rayleigh–Taylor instability growth on low-density foam targets

Abstract

In recent laser fusion programs, foam cryogenic targets have been developed as promising targets which have a great potential to realize efficient nuclear fusion. The foam is porous plastic material having a microstructure inside. We observed the growth of the Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) instability on the foam target with initial surface perturbation for the first time. The measured RT growth rate on the foam target was clearly suppressed in comparison to that of normal-density polystyrene (CH) targets. The values of the RT growth rate for the low-density foam target and the normal-density CH target were 0.84±0.15 (1∕ns) and 1.33±0.1 (1∕ns), respectively.