Hot-spot mix in ignition-scale implosions on the NIF [Hot-spot mix in ignition-scale implosions on the National Ignition Facility (NIF)]
- Univ. of Rochester, Rochester, NY (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Prism Computational Sciences, Madison, WI (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States)
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Univ. of Rochester, NY (United States). Lab. for Laser Energetics
Ignition of an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) target depends on the formation of a central hot spot with sufficient temperature and areal density. Radiative and conductive losses from the hot spot can be enhanced by hydrodynamic instabilities. The concentric spherical layers of current National Ignition Facility (NIF) ignition targets consist of a plastic ablator surrounding 2 a thin shell of cryogenic thermonuclear fuel (i.e., hydrogen isotopes), with fuel vapor filling the interior volume. The Rev. 5 ablator is doped with Ge to minimize preheat of the ablator closest to the DT ice caused by Au M-band emission from the hohlraum x-ray drive. Richtmyer–Meshkov and Rayleigh–Taylor hydrodynamic instabilities seeded by high-mode (50 < t < 200) ablator-surface perturbations can cause Ge-doped ablator to mix into the interior of the shell at the end of the acceleration phase. As the shell decelerates, it compresses the fuel vapor, forming a hot spot. K-shell line emission from the ionized Ge that has penetrated into the hot spot provides an experimental signature of hot-spot mix. The Ge emission from tritium–hydrogen–deuterium (THD) and DT cryogenic targets and gas-filled plastic shell capsules, which replace the THD layer with a massequivalent CH layer, was examined. The inferred amount of hot-spot mix mass, estimated from the Ge K-shell line brightness using a detailed atomic physics code, is typically below the 75 ng allowance for hot-spot mix. Furthermore, predictions of a simple mix model, based on linear growth of the measured surface-mass modulations, are consistent with the experimental results.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-07NA27344
- OSTI ID:
- 1343041
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-JRNL-520491
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 19, Issue 5; ISSN 1070-664X
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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