Accessing Terapascal Pressures On Two-Stage Light-Gas Guns for High-Energy-Density Research

We present novel pressure amplifiers that have been developed to enable the study of material behavior at terapascal (TPa) pressures using two-stage light-gas gun (2SLGG) facilites. When impacted by a hyper-velocity projectile, the pressure amplifier splits the incoming shock into a series of fronts that eventually merge to form a Mach stem, generating a planar output shock that greatly exceeds the initial drive. Validation experiments demonstrated that peak pressures of 0.6 TPa and 1.073~TPa were achieved in quartz samples for two different amplifier designs. These pressures correspond to a five-time enhancement of the sample pressures typically accessible at 2SLGG facilities. The temporal and spatial uniformity of the pressure drive is suitable for high-precision Equation-of-State (EoS) measurements of materials relative to a shock standard. This work greatly extends the capabilities of 2SLGG facilities and opens new avenues of study in High-Energy-Density (HED) physics using these drivers.