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Performance of beryllium targets with full-scale capsules in low-fill 6.72-mm hohlraums on the National Ignition Facility

Journal Article · · Physics of Plasmas
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4983141· OSTI ID:1357132
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  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  3. General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
  4. 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 in this paper 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. Finally, 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:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; 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, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 24; ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Exploring the limits of case-to-capsule ratio, pulse length, and picket energy for symmetric hohlraum drive on the National Ignition Facility Laser journal May 2018
Implosion shape control of high-velocity, large case-to-capsule ratio beryllium ablators at the National Ignition Facility journal July 2018
Octahedral spherical Hohlraum for Rev. 6 NIF beryllium capsule journal October 2018
Beryllium capsule implosions at a case-to-capsule ratio of 3.7 on the National Ignition Facility journal October 2018
Toward a burning plasma state using diamond ablator inertially confined fusion (ICF) implosions on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) journal November 2018