Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Shock timing on the National Ignition Facility: the first precision tuning series

Conference ·
Ignition implosions on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) [Lindl et al., Phys. Plasmas 11, 339 (2004)] are driven with a very carefully tailored sequence of four shock waves that must be timed to very high precision in order to keep the fuel on a low adiabat. The first series of precision tuning experiments on NIF have been performed. These experiments use optical diagnostics to directly measure the strength and timing of all four shocks inside the hohlraum-driven, cryogenic deuterium-filled capsule interior. The results of these experiments are presented demonstrating a significant decrease in the fuel adiabat over previously un-tuned implosions. The impact of the improved adiabat on fuel compression is confirmed in related deuterium-tritium (DT) layered capsule implosions by measurement of fuel areal density (rR), which show the highest fuel compression (rR {approx} 1.0 g/cm{sup 2}) measured to date.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
1035292
Report Number(s):
LLNL-PROC-510431
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (10)

Assembly of High-Areal-Density Deuterium-Tritium Fuel from Indirectly Driven Cryogenic Implosions journal May 2012
Laser interferometer for measuring high velocities of any reflecting surface journal November 1972
Precision Shock Tuning on the National Ignition Facility journal May 2012
Tuning the Implosion Symmetry of ICF Targets via Controlled Crossed-Beam Energy Transfer journal January 2009
Shock timing experiments on the National Ignition Facility: Initial results and comparison with simulation journal April 2012
Line-imaging velocimeter for shock diagnostics at the OMEGA laser facility journal November 2004
The physics basis for ignition using indirect-drive targets on the National Ignition Facility journal February 2004
Three-dimensional HYDRA simulations of National Ignition Facility targets journal May 2001
Convergent ablator performance measurements journal October 2010
The experimental plan for cryogenic layered target implosions on the National Ignition Facility—The inertial confinement approach to fusion journal May 2011