Determination of laser entrance hole size for ignition-scale octahedral spherical hohlraums

Abstract

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.