Hugoniot Measurements in Thin Film Composites Via X-ray Diffraction

Thin film multilayers are typically composed of many layers of two uniformly structured constituents with thicknesses on the order of 10s of nanometers. While the behavior of the individual constituents is often well understood, the response of the multilayer is not. The complex wave interactions generated by the numerous material interfaces and the thin nature (10s of micrometers) of these materials make accurate experimental Hugoniot measurements difficult. In this work, we present Hugoniot measurements of Ni+Al multilayers using laser-driven experiments coupled with in-situ X-ray diffraction measurements. These experimental results show excellent agreement to prior laser-launched flier methods and recent analytical predictions using various mixture routines validating this approach for measuring the Hugoniot response of complex, thin film materials.