April 3rd, 2015
A photograph of the plasma in Beam 8 of the Vulcan Target Area West laser.
This image shows the laser focused on a metal target. The laser is in the infra-red and is invisible in this image. The metal turns into plasma, a very hot 4th state of matter. What you can see is the plasma and two distinct cones of plasma and material ejected from the target from both the front (laser side) of the target and the rear.
This experiment was designed to make highly penetrating x-rays to investigate their imaging properties.