Radiative ablation to low-Z matter.
Eight beams of 0.35-microm laser with pulse duration of about 1.0 ns and energy of 260 J per beam were injected into a cylindrical cavity to generate intense x-ray radiation on the Shengguang II high power laser facility. Plastic foils with a thickness in the range of about 3.0-45 microm were attached on the diagnostic hole of the cavity and ablated by the intense x-ray radiation. The radiative energy transport through plastic foils with different thicknesses has been studied experimentally. The burn-through time of the plastic foils has been obtained. For comparison, we also simulated the experimental results with Planckian and non-Planckian x-ray spectrum source, respectively. It is shown that for thick plastic foil the simulation with non-Planckian x-ray spectrum source is in good agreement with the experiment.