Nonequilibrium laser-produced plasma of volume-structured media and ICF applications

This paper is devoted to the investigation of powerful laser pulse interact ion with regularly and statistically volume-structured media with near crit ical average density and properties of laser-produced plasma of such a medi a. The results of the latest experiments on laser pulse interaction with pl ane foam targets performed on Nd-laser facilities "ABC" in the ENEA-EURATOM Association (Frascati, Italy) and "MISHEN" in the Troitsk Institute of Inn ovation Thermonuclear Investigations (TRINTTI, Troitsk Russia), and J-laser "ISKRA-4" in the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, All-Russian Scientific Re search Institute of Experimental Physics (RFNC-VNIIEF, Sarov, Russia) are p resented and analyzed. High efficiency of the internal volume absorption of laser radiation in the foams of supercritical density was observed, and th e dynamics of absorbing region formation and velocity of energy transfer pr ocess versus the parameters of porous matter are found. Some inertial confi nement fusion (ICF) applications based on nonequilibrium properties of lase r-produced plasma of a foam and regularly structured media such as the powe rful neutron source with yield of 10(9)-10(11) DT-neutrons per 1 J of laser energy, laser-produced X-ray generation in high temperature supercritical plasma, and the compact ICF target absorbers providing effective smoothing and ablation are proposed.