Implosion experiments using glass ablators for direct-drive inertial confinement fusion.
Direct-drive implosions with 20-microm-thick glass shells were conducted on the Omega Laser Facility to test the performance of high-Z glass ablators for direct-drive, inertial confinement fusion. The x-ray signal caused by hot electrons generated by two-plasmon-decay instability was reduced by more than approximately 40x and hot-electron temperature by approximately 2x in the glass compared to plastic ablators at ignition-relevant drive intensities of approximately 1x10(15) W/cm2, suggesting reduced target preheat. The measured absorption and compression were close to 1D predictions. The measured soft x-ray production in the spectral range of approximately 2 to 4 keV was approximately 2x to 3x lower than 1D predictions, indicating that the shell preheat caused by soft x-rays is less than predicted. A direct-drive-ignition design based on glass ablators is introduced.
Smalyuk
V A
VA
Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester, 250 East River Road, Rochester, New York 14623-1299, USA.
Betti
R
R
Delettrez
J A
JA
Glebov
V Yu
VY
Meyerhofer
D D
DD
Radha
P B
PB
Regan
S P
SP
Sangster
T C
TC
Sanz
J
J
Seka
W
W
Stoeckl
C
C
Yaakobi
B
B
Frenje
J A
JA
Li
C K
CK
Petrasso
R D
RD
Séguin
F H
FH