Planar shock wave generated by uniform irradiation from two overlapped partially coherent laser beams

Two partially coherent light laser beams, coupled with a random phase plate were focused at an angle of 31.7 degrees with the centers of the beams off set by 250 mum. This produced a relatively uniform (7% root-mean-square) ir radiated spot of 400 mum. When this technique was used to produce a shock w ave in a copper wedge, a relatively uniform shock of 2 ns duration was prod uced. In addition, a multilayered flyer plate was accelerated using this me thod to an average speed of 21 km/s and produced a planar impact on a glass window. It is anticipated that this technique can be used to produce impor tant multi-Mbar equation of state information in future experiments. (C) 20 01 American Institute of Physics.