INTERACTION OF FEMTOSECOND LASER-PULSES WITH ULTRATHIN FOILS

An approach for using intense femtosecond lasers to produce an equival ent idealized slab plasma of uniform electron density and temperature is described and demonstrated through numerical simulations. With a fe mtosecond laser as a probe, such a plasma allows the direct measuremen t of ac conductivity in the strongly coupled regime. It also serves as an initial value problem for the study of hot expanded states of matt er.