Observation of the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability in Ablatively Accelerated Foils

We present the first absolute, two-dimensionally resolved measurements of areal mass density of laser-driven ablatively accelerated foils, which show the Rayleigh-Taylor instability developing from initial mass perturbations. Our data are near simulation results which predict that the Rayleigh-Taylor growth rate is less than classical. The measurements sometimes show development of significant areal mass inhomogeneity in a direction perpendicular to that of the initially imposed perturbations.