Non-ideal plasmas are difficult to model numerically and achieve experimentally. Here I
focus on reaching the warm dense matter (WDM) regime at one end of the energy scale
and the high energy density (HED) regime at the other. Both regimes access common,
yet hard to observe, features in planetary core physics and astrophysics respectively.
We have implemented several experiments developing both ionic, isochoric heating of
matter to HED states, and probing the release isentrope through the WDM regime. Using
sub-picosecond, ~ 100 J laser pulses, ion beams were produced in a thin foil interaction
and then used to rapidly and uniformly heat ~ 20 µm wires to ~15 eV temperatures
before hydrodynamic expansion could occur. Thus the partially ionised, strongly coupled
WDM regime was accessed and then explored using streaked XUV and UV imaging of the
expansion into vacuum, together with measurement of the ion spectra deposited in the
sample. The calibrated ion spectra indicates the energy deposition occurs over ~ 400 ps
and as such further investigation of the stopping power of warm dense matter is required.
The high absorption of these laser pulses in cluster gases (> 90%) was used to create
HED blast waves. Under hydrodynamic scaling laws these blast waves can be used
to model processes occurring within astrophysical phenomena. Schlieren, interferometry
and ion probing methods have been used to spatially and temporally resolve the blast
wave profiles. We describe high energy scaling experiments in the search for the thermal
cooling instability, in which radiation from the blast wave modi es both its density profile
and propagation dynamics. A unique perpendicular, time delayed colliding blast wave
geometry has been used to identify up-stream characteristics of the front propagation and
to pre-heat material leading to shock front acceleration. We show that ions of an energy
greater than ~ 200 keV are required to probe the transient electromagnetic fields believed
to occur at the shock front.
The development and characterisation of low energy (0.1 - 10 MeV) proton beams
was necessary for studies of both non-ideal plasma regimes, particularly for probing high
density media and transient electromagnetic fields. The application of ions to recover
stopping power is discussed for WDM and HED plasmas.