We present a phase retrieval method (PRM) for analyzing single-phase displacement interferometry measurements on rapidly changing velocity histories, including photon Doppler velocimetry (PDV). PRM identifies the peaks and valleys as well as zero-crossing points in a PDV time series, performs normalization and extracts point-by-point phase and thus velocity information. PRM does not require a wide time window as in sliding window Fourier transformation, and thus improves the effective temporal resolution. This method is implemented in analyzing PDV data obtained from gas gun experiments, and validated against simultaneous measurements with velocity interferometer system for any reflector.

Wide-angle X-ray diffraction on large-scale laser facility is a well-established experimental method, which is used to study the shock response of single crystal materials by recording X-rays diffracted from numerous lattice planes. We present a three-dimensional graphical method for extracting physical understanding from the raw diffraction data in shocked experiments. This method advances beyond the previous iterative process by turning abstract diffraction theories in shock physics into mathematic issues, providing three-dimensional visualization and quick extraction of data characteristics. The capability and versatility of the method are exhibited by identifying lattice planes for single crystal samples with different orientations and quantitatively measuring the lattice compression and rotation under dynamic loading.