2004 Volume 80 Issue 6 Pages 432-437
Laser-induced shock waves have been used to study the extreme state of various materials (equation of state;EOS), achieving pressures exceeding 100 Mega bars (10 Tera Pascal). Recent developments regarding experimental systems, including diagnostics, have been proved to obtain accurate EOS data with errors of less than several percent. Methods to obtain EOS data are introduced as well as the diagnostics.