A direct-drive exploding-pusher implosion as the first step in development of a monoenergetic charged-particle backlighting platform at the National Ignition Facility

Abstract

A thin-glass-shell, D3He-filled exploding-pusher inertial confinement fusion implosion at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) has been demonstrated as a proton source that serves as a promising first step toward development of a monoenergetic proton, alpha, and triton backlighting platform at the NIF. Among the key measurements, the D3He-proton emission on this experiment (shot N121128) has been well-characterized spectrally, temporally, and in terms of emission isotropy, revealing a highly monoenergetic (ΔE/E∼4%) and isotropic source (~3% proton fluence variation and ~0.5% proton energy variation). On a similar shot (N130129, with D2 fill), the DD-proton spectrum has been obtained as well, illustrating that monoenergetic protons of multiple energies may be utilized in a single experiment. These results, and experiments on OMEGA, point toward future steps in the development of a precision, monoenergetic proton, alpha, and triton source that can readily be implemented at the NIF for backlighting a broad range of high energy density physics (HEDP) experiments in which fields and flows are manifest, and also utilized for studies of stopping power in warm dense matter and in classical plasmas.