title: Implosion experiments using glass ablators for direct-drive inertial confinement fusion.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester, 250 East River Road, Rochester, New York 14623-1299, USA.
authors.forename: V A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Smalyuk
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Betti
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Delettrez
authors.forename: V Yu
authors.initials: VY
authors.lastname: Glebov
authors.forename: D D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Meyerhofer
authors.forename: P B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Radha
authors.forename: S P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Regan
authors.forename: T C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Sangster
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sanz
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Seka
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stoeckl
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Yaakobi
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Frenje
authors.forename: C K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: R D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Petrasso
authors.forename: F H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Séguin