FLYER ACCELERATION BY HIGH-POWER LASER AND IMPACT EXPERIMENTS AT VELOCITIES HIGHER THAN 10 KM/S.

Flyer acceleration technique using high-power lasers has several advantages such as the achieved velocities higher than 10 km/s and non-contamination to the products generated by impacts. In this study, we show that a high-power laser can achieve impact velocities higher than 10 km/s up to 60 km/s using sheet flyers with a diameter of ~ 0.5 mm and a thickness of ~ 30 - 50 μm and spherical projectiles with a diameter of 0.1 - 0.3 mm. We discuss the difference between sheet and spherical flyers in the energy transfer efficiency from laser energy to flyer kinetic energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]