The near vacuum hohlraum campaign at the NIF: A new approach
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Here, the near vacuum campaign on the National Ignition Facility has concentrated its efforts over the last year on finding the optimum target geometry to drive a symmetric implosion at high convergence ratio (30). As the hohlraum walls are not tamped with gas, the hohlraum is filling with gold plasma and the challenge resides in depositing enough energy in the hohlraum before it fills up. Hohlraum filling is believed to cause symmetry swings late in the pulse that are detrimental to the symmetry of the hot spot at high convergence. This paper describes a series of experiments carried out to examine the effect of increasing the distance between the hohlraum wall and the capsule (case to capsule ratio) on the symmetry of the hot spot. These experiments have shown that smaller Case to Capsule Ratio (CCR of 2.87 and 3.1) resulted in oblate implosions that could not be tuned round. Larger CCR (3.4) led to a prolate implosion at convergence 30 implying that inner beam propagation at large CCR is not impeded by the expanding hohlraum plasma. A Case to Capsule ratio of 3.4 is a promising geometry to design a round implosion but in a smaller hohlraum where the hohlraum losses are lower, enabling a wider cone fraction range to adjust symmetry.
- Research Organization:
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- NA0002726; AC52-07NA27344; NA0001857; NA0002949
- OSTI ID:
- 1260965
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1254368; OSTI ID: 1260966; OSTI ID: 1260967
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 23, Issue 5; ISSN 1070-664X
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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