Investigation of warm dense matter by combining static and dynamic compression

Shock-compressing material samples that are precompressed with diamond-anvil cells (DACs) enables benchmarking equation of state measurements over a wide range of high-pressure conditions, in particular, warm dense matter relevant to planetary science, astrophysics, and inertial confinement fusion. These targets provide optical access to the shocked sample, so optical velocity interferometry and pyrometry are typical diagnostics. We present a scaling for the coupling of the laser drive to the shock pressure in DACs based on over 150 prior experiments that can be used to design future experiments. For initial static pressures ≤ 5 GPa, using a sapphire window mitigates the effect of photoionization compared to diamond windows and allows the measurement of shock pressures up to 1 TPa with optical diagnostics.