Surface oxygen micropatterns on glow discharge polymer targets by photo irradiation

Abstract

Recent simulations predict surface oxygen may be a significant source of disruptive perturbations in the implosion process of glow-discharge polymers (GDP) ablators at the National Ignition Facility. GDP material held in ambient atmospheric conditions showed an increase in mass when stored in light transparent containers, which suggests that photo exposure is a driving force for oxygen absorption. To investigate if surface oxygen is a contributing factor of disruptive perturbations during implosion, a method to imprint a periodic micropattern of oxygen on the surface of GDP was developed and used to fabricate a flat sample for empirical testing. Photo exposure using collimated blue light was used to generate micropatterns of surface oxygen on the GDP material. The periodic oxygen micropattern was confirmed by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and energy dispersive spectroscopy. A SIMS depth profile showed the atomic percent of oxygen ranged from 8 at. % near the surface to 1 at. % at a depth of 2 μm in a sample exposed for 4 min. The molecular interactions formed between the GDP and oxygen molecules were characterized using Fourier transform infrared resonance (FTIR), which showed the formation of hydroxyl (O–H) and carbonyl (C=O) bonds. The FTIR enabled the oxygen mass uptake as a function of photo exposure time to be quantified (resolved to typically 0.05 at. % oxygen). This experimental protocol was then applied to produce a GDP flat part with a periodic 75 μm wavelength micropattern of photo exposed (oxygen rich) and masked (oxygen deficient) regions. The micropatterned GDP ablators developed in this work are being used to assess the effect of surface oxygen on disruptive perturbations during the inertial confinement fusion implosion process.