Foil acceleration by intense, pulsed, ion-beam ablation

High pressure, high temperature ablation plasma produced by intense, pulsed, ion-beam has been used to accelerate thin foil target. Pulsed ion beam with energy density in the range of 100 ∼ 4000 J/cm² was irradiated on aluminum target with thick of 50 ∼ 100µm. The time-of-flight technique was used to measure the velocity of the accelerated target foil. The maximum target velocity of ∼ 7.7 km/s was obtained. The ablation pressure obtained from the target speed was ∼13 GPa. The target velocity was found to be almost proportional to beam energy density. As an application of the high pressure generated by ablation plasma, the crystalline structure characteristics of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) was studied under the irradiation of pulsed ion beam.