The high-foot implosion campaign on the National Ignition Facility

Journal Article · Thu May 15 04:00:00 EDT 2014 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4874330· OSTI ID:22300207

Callahan, D. A.; Casey, D. T.; Dewald, E. L.; Dittrich, T. R.; Döppner, T.; Barrios Garcia, M. A.; Hinkel, D. E.; Berzak Hopkins, L. F.; Kervin, P.; Pape, S. Le; Ma, T.; MacPhee, A. G.; Milovich, J. L.; Moody, J.; Pak, A. E.; Patel, P. K.; Park, H. -S.; Remington, B. A.; Robey, H. F. ^[1]; others, and

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1. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551 (United States)

The “High-Foot” platform manipulates the laser pulse-shape coming from the National Ignition Facility laser to create an indirect drive 3-shock implosion that is significantly more robust against instability growth involving the ablator and also modestly reduces implosion convergence ratio. This strategy gives up on theoretical high-gain in an inertial confinement fusion implosion in order to obtain better control of the implosion and bring experimental performance in-line with calculated performance, yet keeps the absolute capsule performance relatively high. In this paper, we will cover the various experimental and theoretical motivations for the high-foot drive as well as cover the experimental results that have come out of the high-foot experimental campaign. At the time of this writing, the high-foot implosion has demonstrated record total deuterium-tritium yields (9.3×10{sup 15}) with low levels of inferred mix, excellent agreement with implosion simulations, fuel energy gains exceeding unity, and evidence for the “bootstrapping” associated with alpha-particle self-heating.

• OSTI ID: 22300207
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 21; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ALPHA PARTICLES
CONTROL
DEUTERIUM
GAIN
IMPLOSIONS
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
INSTABILITY
LASERS
PERFORMANCE
PLASMA HEATING
PULSE SHAPERS
SIMULATION
TRITIUM
US NATIONAL IGNITION FACILITY
YIELDS