The energy and spectrum of the reflected 248 nm radiation are studied from solid targets up to 1.15 × 1018 W cm-2 intensity. The experiments used the 700 fs directly amplified pulses of the KrF system which was cleaned from prepulses with the new Fourier-filtering method providing 12 orders of magnitude temporal contrast. Increasing the intensity from 1015 W cm-2 results in increasing absorption up to more than 90% above 1018 W cm-2. This is accompanied by increasing x-ray conversion exhibiting a less steep power law dependence for low-Z matter than for gold. Strong blue shift of the reflected radiation from the backward propagating plasma was observed. It is shown that in the case of KrF laser pulses of highest contrast, vacuum heating can be one of the dominant absorption mechanisms. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Prospects for high gain inertial fusion energy (part 1)'.
Keywords: laser plasma; reflection; ultrashort pulse; ultraviolet.