Solution Based Deposition of Polyimide Ablators for NIF Capsules
Between June 1997 and March 2002 Luxel Corporation was contracted to explore the possibility of preparing NIF scale capsules with polyimide ablators using solution-based techniques. This work offered a potential alternative to a vapor deposition approach talking place at LLNL. The motivation for pursuing the solution-based approach was primarily two-fold. First, it was expected that much higher strength capsules (relative to vapor deposition) could be prepared since the solution precursors were known to produce high strength films. Second, in applying the ablator as a fluid it was expected that surface tension effects would lead to very smooth surfaces. These potential advantages were offset by expected difficulties, primary among them that the capsules would need to be levitated in some fashion (for example acoustically) during coating and processing, and that application of the coating uniformly to thicknesses of 150 pm on levitated capsules would be difficult. Because of the expected problems with the coupling of levitation and coating, most of the initial effort was to develop coating and processing techniques on stalk-mounted capsules. The program had some success. Using atomizer spray techniques in which application of {approx}5 {micro}m fluid coatings were alternated with heating to remove solvent resulted in up to 70 {micro}m thick coatings that were reasonably smooth at short wavelengths, and showed only about a 1 {micro}m thickness variation over long wavelengths. More controlled deposition with an inkjet devise was also developed. However difficult technical problems remained, and these problems coupled with the relative success of the vapor deposition approach led to the termination of the solution-based work in 2002. What follows is a compilation of the progress reports submitted by Luxel for this work which spanned a number of separate contracts. The reports are arranged chronologically, the last report in the collection has a modest summary of what has been accomplished and provides a reasonably starting point for reviewing the work performed.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 15004914
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-ID-149602; TRN: US200321%%413
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 11 Jul 2002
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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