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The novel octahedral spherical hohlraum can provide an ideal and practical approach for the next generation of laser systems to support both direct and indirect drive to achieve predictable and reproducible fusion gain via multiple schemes. To demonstrate its advantage in a naturally high symmetry at a cylindrically configured laser facility, it requires to repoint the laser beams to approach as close as possible the ideal octahedral beam configuration with an injection angle (the angle between a beam and the normal direction of its laser entrance hole (LEH)) ranging from 50° to 60°. We report our investigation and experiment on the optimum repointing scheme at the SGIII facility, which uses 32 beams, with 8 beams entering each polar LEH at 49.5° and 55°, and 4 beams entering each equatorial LEH at 61.5° and 62.1°. It contains residual imbalance between the polar and equatorial beams, leading to an asymmetry dominated by the spherical harmonic Y20 mode, which can be remarkably reduced by the stronger backscatters of equatorial beams. Our experiment demonstrated the feasibility of the 32-beam optimum repointing scheme and generation of 175 eV under 86 kJ inside a 2.4-mm-radius octahedral hohlraum with 0.7-mm-radius LEHs, which provided a strong support for the later experiment on proof-of-concept of octahedral spherical hohlraum [Lan et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 245001 (2021)]. 2D simulations on LEH closure agree well with the observations. This work opens a novel way of realization of a quasi-spherical irradiation at a cylindrically configured laser facility without supplementary symmetry control.

A recently proposed octahedral spherical hohlraum with six laser entrance holes (LEHs) is an attractive concept for an upgraded laser facility aiming at a predictable and reproducible fusion gain with a simple target design. However, with the laser energies available at present, LEH size can be a critical issue. Owing to the uncertainties in simulation results, the LEH size should be determined on the basis of experimental evidence. However, determination of LEH size of an ignition target at a small-scale laser facility poses difficulties. In this paper, we propose to use the prepulse of an ignition pulse to determine the LEH size for ignition-scale hohlraums via LEH closure behavior, and we present convincing evidence from multiple diagnostics at the SGIII facility with ignition-scale hohlraum, laser prepulse, and laser beam size. The LEH closure observed in our experiment is in agreement with data from the National Ignition Facility. The total LEH area of the octahedral hohlraum is found to be very close to that of a cylindrical hohlraum, thus successfully demonstrating the feasibility of the octahedral hohlraum in terms of laser energy, which is crucially important for sizing an ignition-scale octahedrally configured laser system. This work provides a novel way to determine the LEH size of an ignition target at a small-scale laser facility, and it can be applied to other hohlraum configurations for the indirect drive approach.

Space-resolving flux detection is an important technique for the diagnostic of the radiation field within the hohlraum in inertial confinement fusion, especially for the radiation field diagnostic in the novel spherical hohlraum with octahedral six laser entrance holes (LEHs), where localized measurements are necessary for the discrimination of the radiation flux from different LEHs. A novel space-resolving flux detector (SRFD) is developed at the SG-III laser facility for the radiation flux measurement in the first campaign of the octahedral spherical hohlraum energetics experiment. The principle and configuration of the SRFD system is introduced. The radiation flux from the wall of a gas-filled octahedral spherical hohlraum is measured for the first time by placing the SRFD system at the equatorial position of the SG-III laser facility, aiming at the hohlraum wall through one of the six LEHs. The absolute radiation flux from the re-emission area on the hohlraum wall is measured, and good consistency is found between the experimental data and the calculated data from a three-dimensional view factor analysis.

The cylindrical vacuum hohlraum energy at the SGIII laser facility [X. T. He and W. Y. Zhang, Eur. Phys. J. D 44, 227 (2007) and W. Zheng et al., High Power Laser Sci. Eng. 4, e21 (2016)] is investigated for the first time. The hohlraum size and the laser energy are intermediate between the Nova and NIF typical hohlraum experiments. It is found that the SGIII hohlraum exhibits an x-ray conversion efficiency of about 85%, which is more close to that of the NIF hohlraum. The LARED simulations of the SGIII hohlraum underestimate about 15% of the radiation flux measured from the laser entrance hole, while the capsule radiation drive inferred from the x-ray bangtime is roughly consistent with the experiments. The underestimation of the SGIII hohlraum radiation flux is mainly caused by the more enclosed laser entrance hole in the LARED simulation. The comparison between the SGIII and NIF hohlraum simulations by LARED indicates that the LARED generally underestimates the measured radiation flux by 15% for the hi...

In laser driven hohlraums, laser beams on the same incident cone may have different beam and plasma conditions, causing beam-to-beam backscatter difference and subsequent azimuthal variations in the x-ray drive on the capsule. To elucidate the large variation of backscatter proportion from beam to beam in some gas-filled hohlraum shots on Shenguang-III, two 28.5° beams have been measured with the Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) time-resolved spectra. A bifurcated fiber is used to sample two beams and then coupled to a spectrometer and streak camera combination to reduce the cost. The SRS spectra, characterized by a broad wavelength, were further corrected considering the temporal distortion and intensity modulation caused by components along the light path. This measurement will improve the understanding of the beam propagation inside the hohlraum and related laser plasma instabilities.

An octahedral spherical hohlraum is a promising candidate in target design for inertial confinement fusion study, because of its potential superiority in uniform radiation and efficient coupling [Lan et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 010704 (2014)]. Before the experimental investigation for octahedral spherical hohlraum, an energetics experiment is accomplished on the Shenguang-III prototype laser facility by using spherical hohlraums with two cylindrical laser entrance holes. Time evolution of the radiation temperature is obtained with flat response X-ray diode detectors at four different viewing angles with demonstrated repeatability of the measurements. The experimental observations are successfully explained by using a phenomenological model which considers not only the radiation flux contributed from the laser ablated and radiation ablated plasma from hohlraum wall, but also that contributed from the filling plasma inside the hohlraum. This method proves to be a simple but effective way to interpret the time...

The energetics experiment of vacuum gold hohlraums is implemented on the Shenguang-II laser facility. The total and M-band x-ray fluxes from the laser entrance holes are measured by the flat response x-ray diodes which are set at multiple angles with respect to the axis of the hohlraums. The measured M-band fractions are from 5.72% to 7.71%, which present a specific angular distribution. Based on the fact that the M-band x-rays are mainly emitted from the under-dense high-temperature plasmas, a simplified model is developed to give a quantitative prediction of the intensity, temporal behavior, and angular distribution of the M-band x-ray flux. The results obtained with our model are in good agreement with the experimental data, showing that our model can be a useful tool for M-band x-ray investigation.

A new radial neutron camera system has been developed and operated recently in the HL-2A tokamak to measure the spatial and time resolved 2.5 MeV D-D fusion neutron, enhancing the understanding of the energetic-ion physics. The camera mainly consists of a multichannel collimator, liquid-scintillation detectors, shielding systems, and a data acquisition system. Measurements of the D-D fusion neutrons using the camera have been successfully performed during the 2015 HL-2A experiment campaign. The measurements show that the distribution of the fusion neutrons in the HL-2A plasma has a peaked profile, suggesting that the neutral beam injection beam ions in the plasma have a peaked distribution. It also suggests that the neutrons are primarily produced from beam-target reactions in the plasma core region. The measurement results from the neutron camera are well consistent with the results of both a standard (235)U fission chamber and NUBEAM neutron calculations. In this paper, the new radial neutron camera system on HL-2A and the first experimental results are described.

Neutron emission measurement at the HL-2A tokamak device with a liquid scintillation detector is described. The detector was placed at a location with little structure material in the field of view, and equipped with a gain monitoring system which could provide the possibility to evaluate the gain variation as well as to correct for the detector response. Time trace of the neutron emissivity was obtained and it was consistent with the result of a standard (235)U fission chamber. During the plasma discharge the neutron yield could vary by about four orders of magnitude and the fluctuation of the detector gain was up to about 6%. Pulse height spectrum of the liquid scintillation detector was constructed and corrected with the aid of the gain monitoring system, and the correction was found to be essential for the assessment of the neutron energy spectrum. This successful measurement offered experience and confidence for the application of liquid scintillation detectors in the upcoming neutron camera system.

A new compact stilbene crystal neutron spectrometer has been investigated and applied in the neutron emission spectroscopy on the EAST tokamak. A new components analysis method is presented to study the anisotropic light output in the stilbene crystal detector. A Geant4 code was developed to simulate the neutron responses in the spectrometer. Based on both the optimal light output function and the fitted pulse height resolution function, a reliable neutron response matrix was obtained by Geant4 simulations and validated by 2.5 MeV and 14 MeV neutron measurements at a 4.5 MV Van de Graaff accelerator. The spectrometer was used to diagnose the ion temperature in plasma discharges with lower hybrid wave injection and ion cyclotron resonance heating on the EAST tokamak.