Increasing stagnation pressure and thermonuclear performance of inertial confinement fusion capsules by the introduction of a high-Z dopant
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Diamond Materials GmbH, Freiburg (Germany)
Inertial confinement fusion requires the inertia of the imploding mass to provide the necessary confinement such that the core reaches adequate high density, temperature, and pressure. Studies utilize low-Z capsules filled with hydrogenic fuel, which are subject to multiple instabilities at the interfaces during the implosion. To improve the stability of the fuel:capsule interface and narrow the imploding shell profile, capsules are doped with a small atomic percentage of a high-Z material. A series of recent indirect-drive experiments executed at the National Ignition Facility with tungsten-doped high density carbon capsules has demonstrated that the presence of this dopant serves to increase the in-flight aspect ratio of the shell and increase the compression and neutron yield performance of both gas-filled and deuterium-tritium cryogenically layered targets. These experiments definitively show that benefits accrued by the introduction of a high-Z dopant into the capsule can outweigh the detrimentally reduced stability of the ablation front, avoiding shell breakup or significant radiative cooling of the hot spot. Future experiments will utilize these types of capsules to additionally increase nuclear performance.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-07NA27344; NA0001808
- OSTI ID:
- 1557044
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1466869
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-JRNL--740802; 894254
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 25; ISSN 1070-664X
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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