Observation of Rayleigh–Taylor growth to short wavelengths on Nike

The uniform and smooth focal profile of the Nike KrF laser [S. Obenschain et al., Phys. Plasmas 3, 2098 (1996)] was used to ablatively accelerate 40 μm thick polystyrene planar targets with pulse shaping to minimize shock heating of the compressed material. The foils had imposed small-amplitude sinusoidal wave perturbations of 60, 30, 20, and 12.5 μm wavelength. The shortest wavelength is near the ablative stabilization cutoff for Rayleigh–Taylor growth. Modification of the saturated wave structure due to random laser imprint was observed. Excellent agreement was found between the two-dimensional simulations and experimental data for most cases where the laser imprint was not dominant.