Counter illuminating ultra intense laser pulses into the high energy density plasma are expected to create a novel heating mechanism by electromagnetic fields driven by counter fast electron flows. A heating mechanism with electromagnetic fields can lead to efficient plasma heating toward inertial confinement fusion by assisting a conventional fast electron energy deposition based on a beam-plasma collision model. This paper reviewed the experiment results of plasma heating by counter illuminating laser pulses with a joule-class Ti:sapphire laser HAMA as well as the present activities related to the counter-illumination of ultra intense laser pulses.
