The model of evaporation, motion and compression of shell laser targets in low-entropy regime is considered. The evaporation rate and accelerating pressure in spherical targets are determined in the stationary corona model. The scaling relation are obtained which make it possible to correlate laser pulse and target parameters and optimize target compression and heating for various values of laser pulse wavelengths and energy. The results of this model are compared with numerical calculation of hydrodynamic and thermal conductivity equations.

Due to the low power density of pumping schemes for nuclear-pumped lasers prior to 1978, a method of utilizing the efficient production of narrow band fluorescence from excimers was developed. This method has since been referred to as a nuclear driven flashlamp. It is possible to achieve sufficient power densities, when combining the flashlamp with novel techniques of reactor/laser interfaces, to drive efficient, high power lasers directly with products from nuclear reactions.

The physics of muon-catalyzed fusion is summarized and discussed in the perspective of energy production by high density muon beams.

The problems of creating solid antimatter are listed and examined. Laser driven accelerators may reduce the technological and financial magnitude of the task.

The experiments reported in this paper demonstrate that the PHEBUS laser facility is now currently being operated with high performances (4 TW with 250 ps pulses at 0·527 μm wavelength).

The output energy of the 2-beam PHEBUS laser system can be focused either in a small focal spot (80% of the incident energy is in a 220 μm diameter focal spot) for high intensity experiments (≥5 × 1015 W cm−2) or in very large spots (a few mm in diameter) at moderate intensities (1013 − 2·5 × 1014 W cm−2), for large scale experiments. It is shown that the spatial intensity distribution in the target plane is primarily due to intensity independent aberrations and to diffraction. Laser light absorption in plane aluminum and gold targets are interpreted in terms of inverse bremsstrahlung absorption that may account for 70 to 90% of absorbed energy. Finally, the plasma expansion is shown to be very planar and comparison with one-dimensional Lagrangian simulations gives flux limiter values of 0·03 and 0·02 respectively for Al and Au targets.

Air breakdown by avalanche ionization plays an important role in the electron beam and microwave propagations. For high electric fields and short pulse applications one needs avalanche ionization parameters for modeling and scaling of experimental devices. However, the breakdown parameters, i.e., the ionization frequency vs E/p (volt. cm−1. Torr−1) in air is uncertain for very high values of E/P. We review the experimental data for the electron drift velocity, the Townsend ionization coefficient in N2 and O2 and develop the ionization frequency and the collision frequency for momentum transfer in air. We construct the E/p vs Pτ diagram and show that our results are in better agreement with the most recent short pulse air breakdown experiments, compared to those predicted by the expression of Felsenthal & Proud (1965). This is because they extrapolate an expression for the drift velocity, linear in E/p, to high values of E/p. Experimentally the drift velocity varies as (E/p)½ in the region of E/p > 100.

The effect of viscosity on the growth reduction of Rayleigh–Taylor modes is studied. It is shown that short wavelength perturbations are strongly damped; however the growth of the most relevant modes in fusion pellets is nearly unaffected.