National Ignition Facility scale hohlraum asymmetry studies by thin shell radiography

Abstract

A necessary condition for igniting indirectly driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) capsules on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is controlling drive asymmetry to the 1% level [S. W. Haan, S. M. Pollaine, J. D. Lindl et al., Phys. Plasmas 2, 2480 (1995)]. Even flux-asymmetry modes (e.g., Legendre modes P2, P4, P6, and P8) must be reduced by hohlraum design and laser beam pointing. Odd flux-asymmetry modes (e.g., Legendre modes P1, P3, P5, etc.) are theoretically removed by reflection symmetry across the hohlraum midplane [S. M. Pollaine and D. Eimerl, Nucl. Fusion 38, 1523 (1998)], but will be produced by power imbalance, laser beam pointing errors, and target fabrication errors. An experimental campaign is now being conducted on the University of Rochester’s Omega laser to measure higher order (P4 and higher) flux asymmetry modes inside hohlraums that approximate the conditions of a NIF hohlraum during the 90 eV early drive phase [S. W. Haan, S. M. Pollaine, J. D. Lindl et al., Phys. Plasmas 2, 2480 (1995)]. These experiments use a new point-projection backlighting technique [O. L. Landen, D. R. Farley, S. G. Glendinning et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 72, 627 (2001)] to cast high quality 4.7 keV radiographs of thin 2 mm diameter Ge-doped CH shells designed to enhance sensitivity to drive asymmetries. Distortions in the position of the limb of the shells resulting primarily from drive asymmetries are measured to an accuracy of 2 μm. The linearity and sensitivity of thin imploding shells to flux asymmetry makes it possible to achieve this degree of accuracy, which is sufficient for NIF ignition symmetry tuning. The promising results to date permit the comparison of measured and predicted distortions and, by inference, drive asymmetries for the first eight asymmetry modes.