Superelastic laser energy conversion has been shown to be capable of extremely rapid rates of plasma heating with relatively modest values of laser irradiance. In the case of a boron III plasma,dTe/dt≳1013 °K sec−1has been predicted for a initial boron III ion density of 1017cm−3. The laser irradiance needed to achieve this rate of change of the free‐electron temperature is about 5×108W cm−2per cm of path length.