Benchtop shock interactions: microblast mixing of laser breakdown shock waves

Two focused nanosecond laser pulses, fired simultaneously, can be used to study the mixing of micro-shock waves at laboratory scales. Here, we present a simple experiment designed to study this microshock mixing as a function of the laser energy and distance between shock origins via multi-flash schlieren imaging and high-fidelity microphones. We further report the pressure response of the mixed shock waves as a function of the microphone position and corroborate results with simulations in the fast-running code BlastX. This work supports the growing body of research demonstrating pulsed laser systems and applicable optical techniques as potential surrogates for much larger detonation experiments.