Multi-keV X-ray sources from metal-lined cylindrical hohlraums

In 2009 a series of metal-lined hohlraums were tested on the Omega laser facility. The main aims of the campaign were to improve our understanding of the multi-keV energy production and our capability to numerically reproduce the measured conversion efficiencies (CE's). Two studies have been primarily planned: the effect of the metallic plasma mean ionization states and that of hydrodynamics. Six targets were experimented for which the metallic materials (titanium, copper, germanium), the cavity diameter, and the irradiation energy were varied. Here we compare experimental and calculated results. The numerical simulations are performed with the 2D hydro-radiative code FCI2. For all the cavities, the measured multi-keV x-ray powers versus time are qualitatively well reproduced by the simulations, indicating that hohlraum hydrodynamics seems to be well calculated. But we have an underestimation by a factor of ∼2 for the calculated CEs versus experimental values for titanium and copper hohlraums. By contrast there is a good agreement between measurements and calculations for the germanium hohlraum. To explain these results, we have calculated off-line integrated emissivities for couples of (ρ, Te) values contributing to the multi-keV production with several non-local-thermal-equilibrium (NLTE) atomic physics models.