Increased compression in HDC-based ablator implosions using modified drive profile
Compression is an essential component of achieving high gain in inertial confinement fusion. However, increasing compression with crystalline ablator-based implosions had not succeeded up to now, attributed to increased hydrodynamic instability growth. We present experimental results demonstrating record high compression of stagnated fuel in indirectly driven implosions that use a high-density carbon ablator at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) [Spaeth et al., Fusion Sci. Technol. 69, 25 (2016)] by the use of a modified drive pulse (and capsule design). Specifically, the SQ-n design [Clark et al., Phys. Plasmas 29, 052710 (2022)] replaces the second and the third shock phase withmore »