Search

Fuel–ablator mix has been established as a major performance degrading effect in the burning plasma regime of recent inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. As such, the study of fuel–ablator mix with experiments and simulations can provide valuable insight for our understanding of these experiments and establish a path for even higher yields and increased robustness. We present a novel high-yield experimental ICF design that is motivated by recent experiments measuring ice–ablator mix with a CH ablator instead of a high-density carbon (HDC) ablator [B. Bachmann et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 275001 (2022)]. We review these experiments in more detail and describe the modeling assumptions and parameters used to obtain agreement with the data from implosion and burn simulations with mix. Using this mix model calibrated a posteriori to the experimental data, we design an implosion that uses a CH ablator that is predicted to achieve better performance than a recent experiment that achieved net target gain of 1.5 in HDC. Because hydrodynamic instabilities are greatly reduced with this new design, we also expect a high reproducibility at the same implosion adiabat as current record yield experiments.

Obtaining a burning plasma is a critical step towards self-sustaining fusion energy1. A burning plasma is one in which the fusion reactions themselves are the primary source of heating in the plasma, which is necessary to sustain and propagate the burn, enabling high energy gain. After decades of fusion research, here we achieve a burning-plasma state in the laboratory. These experiments were conducted at the US National Ignition Facility, a laser facility delivering up to 1.9 megajoules of energy in pulses with peak powers up to 500 terawatts. We use the lasers to generate X-rays in a radiation cavity to indirectly drive a fuel-containing capsule via the X-ray ablation pressure, which results in the implosion process compressing and heating the fuel via mechanical work. The burning-plasma state was created using a strategy to increase the spatial scale of the capsule2,3 through two different implosion concepts4–7. These experiments show fusion self-heating in excess of the mechanical work injected into the implosions, satisfying several burning-plasma metrics3,8. Additionally, we describe a subset of experiments that appear to have crossed the static self-heating boundary, where fusion heating surpasses the energy losses from radiation and conduction. These results provide an opportunity to study α-particle-dominated plasmas and burning-plasma physics in the laboratory.

In a burning plasma state1–7, alpha particles from deuterium–tritium fusion reactions redeposit their energy and are the dominant source of heating. This state has recently been achieved at the US National Ignition Facility8 using indirect-drive inertial-confinement fusion. Our experiments use a laser-generated radiation-filled cavity (a hohlraum) to spherically implode capsules containing deuterium and tritium fuel in a central hot spot where the fusion reactions occur. We have developed more efficient hohlraums to implode larger fusion targets compared with previous experiments9,10. This delivered more energy to the hot spot, whereas other parameters were optimized to maintain the high pressures required for inertial-confinement fusion. We also report improvements in implosion symmetry control by moving energy between the laser beams11–16 and designing advanced hohlraum geometry17 that allows for these larger implosions to be driven at the present laser energy and power capability of the National Ignition Facility. These design changes resulted in fusion powers of 1.5 petawatts, greater than the input power of the laser, and 170 kJ of fusion energy18,19. Radiation hydrodynamics simulations20,21 show energy deposition by alpha particles as the dominant term in the hot-spot energy balance, indicative of a burning plasma state.

We describe an experimental concept at the National Ignition Facility for specifically tailored spherical implosions to compress hydrogen to extreme densities (up to [Formula: see text] solid density, electron number density [Formula: see text]) at moderate temperatures ([Formula: see text]), i.e., to conditions, which are relevant to the interiors of red dwarf stars. The dense plasma will be probed by laser-generated x-ray radiation of different photon energy to determine the plasma opacity due to collisional (free–free) absorption and Thomson scattering. The obtained results will benchmark radiation transport models, which in the case for free–free absorption show strong deviations at conditions relevant to red dwarfs. This very first experimental test of free–free opacity models at these extreme states will help to constrain where inside those celestial objects energy transport is dominated by radiation or convection. Moreover, our study will inform models for other important processes in dense plasmas, which are based on electron–ion collisions, e.g., stopping of swift ions or electron–ion temperature relaxation.

An inertial fusion implosion on the National Ignition Facility, conducted on August 8, 2021 (N210808), recently produced more than a megajoule of fusion yield and passed Lawson's criterion for ignition [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 075001 (2022)10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.075001]. We describe the experimental improvements that enabled N210808 and present the first experimental measurements from an igniting plasma in the laboratory. Ignition metrics like the product of hot-spot energy and pressure squared, in the absence of self-heating, increased by ∼35%, leading to record values and an enhancement from previous experiments in the hot-spot energy (∼3×), pressure (∼2×), and mass (∼2×). These results are consistent with self-heating dominating other power balance terms. The burn rate increases by an order of magnitude after peak compression, and the hot-spot conditions show clear evidence for burn propagation into the dense fuel surrounding the hot spot. These novel dynamics and thermodynamic properties have never been observed on prior inertial fusion experiments.

We present the design of the first igniting fusion plasma in the laboratory by Lawson's criterion that produced 1.37 MJ of fusion energy, Hybrid-E experiment N210808 (August 8, 2021) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 075001 (2022)10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.075001]. This design uses the indirect drive inertial confinement fusion approach to heat and compress a central "hot spot" of deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel using a surrounding dense DT fuel piston. Ignition occurs when the heating from absorption of α particles created in the fusion process overcomes the loss mechanisms in the system for a duration of time. This letter describes key design changes which enabled a ∼3-6× increase in an ignition figure of merit (generalized Lawson criterion) [Phys. Plasmas 28, 022704 (2021)1070-664X10.1063/5.0035583, Phys. Plasmas 25, 122704 (2018)1070-664X10.1063/1.5049595]) and an eightfold increase in fusion energy output compared to predecessor experiments. We present simulations of the hot-spot conditions for experiment N210808 that show fundamentally different behavior compared to predecessor experiments and simulated metrics that are consistent with N210808 reaching for the first time in the laboratory "ignition."

In indirect-drive implosions, the final core hot spot energy and pressure and, hence, neutron yield attainable in 1D increase with increasing laser peak power and, hence, radiation drive temperature at the fixed capsule and Hohlraum size. We present simple analytic scalings validated by 1D simulations that quantify the improvement in performance and use this to explain existing data and simulation trends. Extrapolating to the 500 TW National Ignition Facility peak power limit in a low gas-fill 5.4 mm diameter Hohlraum based on existing high adiabat implosion data at 400 TW, 1.3 MJ and 1 × 1016 yield, we find that a 2–3 × 1017 yield (0.5–0.7 MJ) is plausible using only 1.8 MJ of laser energy. Based on existing data varying deuterium–tritium (DT) fuel thickness and dopant areal density, further improvements should be possible by increasing DT fuel areal density, and hence confinement time and yield amplification.

Laser-driven Hohlraums filled with gas at lower densities (2 and P4 drive asymmetry swings caused by the drift of the laser spots were essentially zeroed out by employing temporal beam phasing between cones of beams [Turner et al., Phys. Plasmas 7, 333 (2000)]. The results also indicate an improved coupling efficiency of ∼30% compared to an earlier design using higher density filled Hohlraums and pave the way for revisiting low-adiabat, high convergence drives using CH ablators.

Journal of physics / D 56(2), 025301 (2022). doi:10.1088/1361-6463/ac99e8, Published by IOP Publ., Bristol

An x-ray Fresnel diffractive radiography platform was designed for use at the National Ignition Facility. It will enable measurements of micron-scale changes in the density gradients across an interface between isochorically heated warm dense matter materials, the evolution of which is driven primarily through thermal conductivity and mutual diffusion. We use 4.75 keV Ti K-shell x-ray emission to heat a 1000 μm diameter plastic cylinder, with a central 30 μm diameter channel filled with liquid D2, up to 8 eV. This leads to a cylindrical implosion of the liquid D2 column, compressing it to ∼2.3 g/cm3. After pressure equilibration, the location of the D2/plastic interface remains steady for several nanoseconds, which enables us to track density gradient changes across the material interface with high precision. For radiography, we use Cu He- α x rays at 8.3 keV. Using a slit aperture of only 1 μm width increases the spatial coherence of the source, giving rise to significant diffraction features in the radiography signal, in addition to the refraction enhancement, which further increases its sensitivity to density scale length changes at the D2/plastic interface.

A platform has been developed to study laser-direct-drive energy coupling at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) using a plastic sphere target irradiated in a polar-direct-drive geometry to launch a spherically converging shock wave. To diagnose this system evolution, eight NIF laser beams are directed onto a curved Cu foil to generate He α line emission at a photon energy of 8.4 keV. These x rays are collected by a 100-ps gated x-ray imager in the opposing port to produce temporally gated radiographs. The platform is capable of acquiring images during and after the laser drive launches the shock wave. A backlighter profile is fit to the radiographs, and the resulting transmission images are Abel inverted to infer radial density profiles of the shock front and to track its temporal evolution. The measurements provide experimental shock trajectories and radial density profiles that are compared to 2D radiation-hydrodynamic simulations using cross-beam energy transfer and nonlocal heat-transport models.

Image formation by Fresnel diffraction utilizes both absorption and phase-contrast to measure electron density profiles. The low spatial and spectral coherence requirements allow the technique to be performed with a laser-produced x-ray source coupled with a narrow slit. This makes it an excellent candidate for probing interfaces between materials at extreme conditions, which can only be generated at large-scale laser or pulsed power facilities. Here, we present the results from a proof-of-principle experiment demonstrating an effective ∼2 μm laser-generated source at the OMEGA Laser Facility. This was achieved using slits of 1 × 30 μm2 and 2 × 40 μm2 geometry, which were milled into 30 μm thick Ta plates. Combining these slits with a vanadium He-like 5.2 keV source created a 1D imaging system capable of micrometer-scale resolution. The principal obstacles to achieving an effective 1 μm source are the slit tilt and taper—where the use of a tapered slit is necessary to increase the alignment tolerance. We demonstrate an effective source size by imaging a 2 ± 0.2 μm radius tungsten wire.

In this study, we present the absolute calibration of the conical crystal for the zinc spectrometer (ZSPEC), an x-ray spectrometer at the OMEGA laser facility at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. The ZSPEC was originally designed to measure x-ray Thomson scattering using flat or cylindrically curved highly oriented pyrolytic graphite crystals centered around Zn He-alpha emission at 9 keV. To improve the useful spectral range and collection efficiency of the ZSPEC, a conical highly annealed pyrolytic graphite crystal was fabricated for the ZSPEC. The conically bent crystal in the Hall geometry produces a line focus perpendicular to the spectrometer axis, corresponding to the detector plane of electronic detectors at large scale laser facilities such as OMEGA, extending the useful range of the spectrometer to 7–11 keV. Using data collected using a microfocus Mo x-ray source, we determine important characteristics of ZSPEC such as the dispersion, spatial resolution, and absolute sensitivity of the instrument. A ray-trace model of ZSPEC provides another point of agreement in calculations of the ZSPEC dispersion and crystal response.

A goal of the laser-based National Ignition Facility (NIF) is to increase the liberated fusion energy “yield” in inertial confinement fusion experiments well past the ignition threshold and the input laser energy. One method of increasing the yield, hydrodynamic scaling of current experiments, does not rely on improving compression or implosion velocity, but rather increases the scale of the implosion to increase hotspot areal density and confinement time. Indirect-drive ( Hohlraum driven) implosions carried out at two target sizes, 12.5% apart, have validated hydroscaling expectations. Moreover, extending comparisons to the best-performing implosions at five different capsule sizes shows that their performance also agrees well with hydroscaling expectations even though not direct hydroscales of one another. In the future, by switching to a reduced loss Hohlraum geometry, simulations indicate that we can drive 20% larger-scale implosions within the current power and energy limitations on the NIF. At the demonstrated compression and velocity of these smaller-scale implosions, these 1.2× hydroscaled implosions should put us well past the ignition threshold.

This paper describes an experiment that shock compresses the center of a solid deuterated polyethylene sphere, CD2, to densities of 35 g/cc and temperatures of 2 keV with corresponding pressure of 40 Gbar. The design employs a strong spherically converging shock launched through a solid ball of material using a Hohlraum radiation drive. As the shock coalesces at the center it produces a hot spot that we characterize by measuring the x-ray self-emission and 2.45MeV neutrons emitted. Two-dimensional images and time-resolved measurements of the x rays emitted determine the size and time duration of the hot spot, leading to an estimated 2 keV electron temperature. The neutron time of flight spectrometer measures an average ion temperature of 1.06 +/- 0.15 keV and neutron yield of 7.0 (+/-0.5) x 10^9 DD neutrons. Our new distribution function tool enables us to create a forward model of the experimental data based on 1D radiation-hydrodynamic simulations, leading to a better understanding of the plasma conditions that produce the measured neutrons and x rays. Our simulations indicate that the x rays are produced in a short-lived hot-dense core over tens of picoseconds, whereas the neutron emission continues for about 200 ps, as the hot core starts to expand, thereby leading to a lower mean temperature of the plasma during neutron production. This finding is in agreement with the experimental data, and we therefore conclude that the forward-modeling is a useful tool forinferring the conditions of the hot spot in a laser-driven implosion during burn.

Warm dense matter is a region of phase space that is of high interest to multiple scientific communities ranging from astrophysics to inertial confinement fusion. Further understanding of the conditions and properties of this complex state of matter necessitates experimental benchmarking of the current theoretical models. Benchmarking of transport properties like conductivity and diffusivity has been scarce because they are small and slow processes that require micron-level resolution to see. We discuss development of a radiography platform designed to allow for measurement of these properties at large laser facilities such as the OMEGA Laser. \c{opyright} 2022 Optica Publishing Group. Users may use, reuse, and build upon the article, or use the article for text or data mining, so long as such uses are for non-commercial purposes and appropriate attribution is maintained. All other rights are reserved., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

We are developing a long-duration K

A Laser Wakefield Accelerator (LWFA) is under development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to produce electron bunches with GeV class energy and energy spreads of a few‐percent. The interaction of a high power (200 TW), short pulse (50 fs) laser with neutral He gas can generate quasi‐monoenergetic electron beams at energies up to 1 GeV [1]. The laser pulse can be self‐guided over 1 cm overcoming the limitation of vacuum diffraction. X‐ray betatron radiation is emitted while the accelerated electrons undergo oscillations in the wakefield electrostatic field. Here we present electron spectra measurements with a two screen spectrometer allowing to measure both the electron energy and the transverse deflection at the plasma exit. We have measured monoenergetic electron beams above 300 MeV. Furthermore a forward directed x‐ray beam is observed. Preliminary measurements of the spectrum are in reasonable agreement with the calculated betatron spectrum in the synchrotron asymptotic limit using the measured electron beam parameters.

We propose a collective Thomson scattering experiment at the VUV free electron laser facility at DESY (FLASH) which aims to diagnose warm dense matter at near-solid density. The plasma region of interest marks the transition from an ideal plasma to a correlated and degenerate many-particle system and is of current interest, e.g. in ICF experiments or laboratory astrophysics. Plasma diagnostic of such plasmas is a longstanding issue. The collective electron plasma mode (plasmon) is revealed in a pump-probe scattering experiment using the high-brilliant radiation to probe the plasma. The distinctive scattering features allow to infer basic plasma properties. For plasmas in thermal equilibrium the electron density and temperature is determined from scattering off the plasmon mode., Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures. Proceedings of the international conference "Radiative Properties of Hot Dense Matter", Sept. 11-15, 2006, Albufeira, Portugal. To appear in"High Energy Density Physics"

High Density Carbon (HDC) is a leading candidate as an ablator material for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) capsules in x-ray (indirect) drive implosions. HDC has a higher density (3.5 g/cc) than plastic (CH, 1 g/cc), which results in a thinner ablator with a larger inner radius for a given capsule scale. This leads to higher x-ray absorption and shorter laser pulses compared to equivalent CH designs. This paper will describe a series of experiments carried out to examine the feasibility of using HDC as an ablator using both gas filled hohlraums and lower density, near vacuum hohlraums. These experiments have shown that deuterium (DD) and deuterium-tritium gas filled HDC capsules driven by a hohlraum filled with 1.2 mg/cc He gas, produce neutron yields a factor of 2× higher than equivalent CH implosions, representing better than 50% Yield-over-Clean (YoC). In a near vacuum hohlraum (He = 0.03 mg/cc) with 98% laser-to-hohlraum coupling, such a DD gas-filled capsule performed near 1D expectations. A cryogenic layered implosion version was consistent with a fuel velocity = 410 ± 20 km/s with no observed ablator mixing into the hot spot.

The first inertial confinement fusion implosion experiments with equimolar deuterium-tritium thermonuclear fuel have been performed on the National Ignition Facility. These experiments use 0.17 mg of fuel with the potential for ignition and significant fusion yield conditions. The thermonuclear fuel has been fielded as a cryogenic layer on the inside of a spherical plastic capsule that is mounted in the center of a cylindrical gold hohlraum. Heating the hohlraum with 192 laser beams for a total laser energy of 1.6 MJ produces a soft x-ray field with 300 eV temperature. The ablation pressure produced by the radiation field compresses the initially 2.2-mm diameter capsule by a factor of 30 to a spherical dense fuel shell that surrounds a central hot-spot plasma of 50 μm diameter. While an extensive set of x-ray and neutron diagnostics has been applied to characterize hot spot formation from the x-ray emission and 14.1 MeV deuterium-tritium primary fusion neutrons, thermonuclear fuel assembly is studied by m...

We report on a practical method where a pulse shaper in combination with second-harmonic generation frequency-resolved optical gating (SHG-FROG) is used to fully characterize ultrashort laser pulses. The original pulse is modified by adding a small satellite, which allows us to determine the direction of time of the retrieved pulse. The setup extends the work of Zeek et al (2002 Appl. Phys. B 74 S265) to more arbitrary pulse structures. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the method is applicable also in high-power ultrashort laser systems, where the pulse former has to be placed before the chirped-pulse amplifier. We found that the amplitude of the satellite must be smaller than 20% of that of the original pulse to avoid nonlinear distortions.

The excitation of neutral platinum and lead clusters by intense femtosecond laser pulses is studied by time-of-flight spectroscopy. Clusters are completely destroyed when interacting in the high intensity region of the laser focus. Moreover, highly charged atomic ions with up to 20 charges are detected under special pulse conditions. The atomic ion distribution shows a pronounced dependence on the chosen pulse width, suggesting that multi-plasmon excitations are responsible for the high charge states measured. The Coulomb explosion of a metal sphere is simulated under tunneling ionisation conditions. The calculated optical response of such a cluster within the framework of the random phase approximation agrees well with the experimental observations.

A new strain of Aspergillus niger containing a high intracellular glucose oxidase and catalase activity could be isolated. The glucose oxidase of this strain showed some favourable properties with regard to enzymatic glucose oxidation in industrial scale. The mycelium was permeabilized by treatment with iso-propanol. Then, additional catalase was bound to the mycelium so that a coimmobilizate, resulted. The enzymatic characteristics of this coimmobilizate, as compared with former immobilized glucose oxidase/catalase preparations, showed higher temperature stability and lower Km-value for glucose. Some basic trials were done for glucose oxidation in a stirred tank reactor where oxygen supply was carried out by controlled addition of hydrogen peroxide instead of conventional aeration. The influence of temperature on the stability of both, glucose oxidase and catalase, was investigated under these application conditions. Glucoseoxidation mit modifiziertem Schimmelpilzmycel Ein neuer Aspergillus niger-Stamm mit hohem Gehalt an intrazellularer Glucoseoxidase und Katalase konnte isoliert werden. Die Glucoseoxidase dieses Stammes wies einige gunstige Eigenschaften im Hinblick auf die enzymatische Glucoseoxidation im industriellen Masstab auf. Das Mycel wurde durch Waschen mit iso-Propanol permeabilisiert und anschliesend durch zusatzliche Anbindung von Katalase in ein Coimmobilisat uberfuhrt. Die Enzymcharakteristika des Coimmobilisats zeigten im Vergleich zu fruheren immobilisierten Praparaten von Glucoseoxidase/Katalase eine hohere Temperaturstabilitat und einen niedrigeren Km-Wert fur Glucose. Einige Basisversuche zur Glucoseoxidation wurden in einem Ruhrreaktor durchgefuhrt; anstelle konventioneller Beluftung wurde die Sauerstoffversorgung durch kontrollierte Zugabe von Wasserstoffperoxid vorgenommen. Der Einflus der Temperatur auf die Stabilitat beider Enzyme, der Glucoseoxidase und Katalase, wurde unter diesen Anwendungsbedingungen untersucht.