Assembly of High-Areal-Density Deuterium-Tritium Fuel from Indirectly Driven Cryogenic Implosions

• Main Authors: Casey, Daniel Thomas (Contributor), Gatu Johnson, Maria (Contributor), Frenje, Johan A. (Contributor), Petrasso, Richard D. (Contributor), Zylstra, Alex Bennett (Contributor), Rinderknecht, Hans George (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Plasma Science and Fusion Center (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Physical Society, 2012-07-18T19:53:10Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

The National Ignition Facility has been used to compress deuterium-tritium to an average areal density of ~1.0±0.1  g cm[superscript -2], which is 67% of the ignition requirement. These conditions were obtained using 192 laser beams with total energy of 1-1.6 MJ and peak power up to 420 TW to create a hohlraum drive with a shaped power profile, peaking at a soft x-ray radiation temperature of 275-300 eV. This pulse delivered a series of shocks that compressed a capsule containing cryogenic deuterium-tritium to a radius of 25-35  μm. Neutron images of the implosion were used to estimate a fuel density of 500-800  g cm[superscript -3].
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Contract No. DE-AC52-07NA27344)