Performance of beryllium targets with full-scale capsules in low-fill 6.72-mm hohlraums on the National Ignition Facility
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
When used with 1.06-mm beryllium (Be) capsules on the National Ignition Facility, gold hohlraums with the inner diameter of 5.75 mm and helium gas fill density of 1.6 mg/cm3 exhibit significant drive degradation due to laser energy backscatter (of order 14%–17%) and “missing” X-ray drive energy (about 32% during the main pulse). Also, hard to simulate cross-beam energy transfer (CBET) must be used to control the implosion symmetry. Larger, 6.72-mm hohlraums with fill densities ≤0.6 mg/cm3 generally offer improved drive efficiency, reduced hot-electron preheat, and better control of the implosion symmetry without CBET. Recently, we carried out an exploratory campaign to evaluate performance of 1.06-mm Be capsules in such hohlraums and determine optimal hohlraum parameters. Specifically, we performed a hohlraum fill-density scan with a three-shock, 9.5-ns laser pulse and found that an appropriate axial laser repointing and azimuthal outer-quad splitting resulted in significantly improved hohlraum energetics at fill densities ≤0.3 mg/cm3 (with backscattered and “missing” energies being of about 5% and 23% of the total laser energy, respectively). The capsule shape at stagnation was slightly oblate and improved with lowering the fill density. We also performed an implosion with a lower-picket, 12.6-ns pulse at the hohlraum fill density of 0.15 mg/cm3 to observe comparable hohlraum energetics (about 3% of backscattered and 27% of “missing” energy) but an even more oblate implosion shape. Thus, achieving symmetric implosions of 1.06-mm Be capsules in low-fill, 6.72-mm gold hohlraums with reasonably low-adiabat pulses may not be feasible. However, symmetric implosions have recently been successfully demonstrated in such hohlraums with 0.8-mm Be capsules.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- Contributing Organization:
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396; AC52-07NA27344; NA0001808
- OSTI ID:
- 1357132
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1361879; OSTI ID: 1374518
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-17-20756; LLNL-JRNL-734711
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 24, Issue 5; ISSN 1070-664X
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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