Ablation Pressure Research Articles

Shock generation comparison with planar and hemispherical targets in shock ignition relevant experiment

We performed an experiment on the “Ligne d'Intégration Laser” facility to produce strong shocks with plasma conditions relevant for the Shock Ignition approach to Inertial Confinement Fusion. Two kinds of targets have been used: planar and hemispherical. We observe an increase in the shock velocity in hemispherical geometry, which entails a fairly planar shock despite the Gaussian focal spot. Numerical results reproduce the shock dynamics in the two cases in a successful way, indicating, for laser intensities around 1.5 × 1015 W/cm2 at 3ω, an ablation pressure of (90 ± 20) Mbar and (120 ± 20) Mbar in planar and hemispherical geometry, respectively.

Using laser cutting as a source of molten droplets for additive manufacturing: A new recycling technique

A new variant of additive manufacturing is proposed which involves transferring molten droplets via a laser beam to a substrate. The droplets are generated by laser remote fusion cutting of a supply sheet that could be a waste material, for recycling purposes. The laser-induced ablation pressure at the cutting front continuously drives melt downwards below the supply sheet in the form of a liquid column. Droplets separate from the column and solidify as a track on a substrate below. The droplets, surrounded by vapour, had in this case an average diameter of 500μm and a speed of 2m/s, with deviations up to 50%. Sound clad tracks were generated on steel and aluminium substrates. In the case of a copper substrate discontinuous clad tracks were produced as a result of poor wetting. The droplet jet had a small divergence of about 5°, which is suitable for controlled deposition. The transmitted part of the laser beam interacted with the clad track but did not affect the process result. High speed imaging was found to be a suitable tool for qualitative and quantitative analysis of the technique.

Experimental verification of the ablation pressure dependence upon the laser intensity at pulsed irradiation of metals

Experiments for verification of a functional dependence of the ablation pressure on the irradiated surface of a target upon the laser intensity in a range from 1.2 to 350 TW/cm2 have been carried out. For that, at some intensities of the laser irradiation, time intervals between the laser pulse maximum and the moment of the shock-wave front arrival to the rear surface of the target were measured, which are dependent on the ablation pressure. Two schemes of the measurements were used. At the first scheme, at higher laser intensities, the front arrival moment is determined via an electron-optical camera when the rear surface begins glowing. At the second scheme, the front arrival moment is recorded when a probe laser pulse changes the character of the reflection by the rear surface of the irradiated target. Results of measurements are in agreement with the ablation pressure dependence upon the laser pulse intensity within 20%.

Aluminum X-ray mass-ablation rate measurements

Measurements of the mass ablation rate of aluminum (Al) have been completed at the Omega Laser Facility. These measurements show that the mass-ablation rate of Al is higher than plastic (CH), comparable to high density carbon (HDC), and lower than beryllium. The mass-ablation rate is consistent with predictions using a 1D Lagrangian code, Helios. The results suggest Al capsules have a reasonable ablation pressure even with a higher albedo than beryllium or carbon ablators and further investigation into the viability of Al capsules for ignition should be pursued.

Target heating due to the shock produced hot electrons in the shock ignition scheme

Hot electrons are produced as a result of ignitor-corona interaction of the shock ignition scheme. In the present paper, penetration depth and energy deposition of such energetic electrons have been qualitatively discussed applying Monte Carlo simulations. Target real conditions for propagating hot electrons were taken from 1-D hydrodynamic simulations. It has been found that compressing target up to 10.4 ns helps to stop hot electrons at a proper distance thus, preventing fuel preheating. In addition, embedding hot electron energy source into the hydrodynamic code, changes of parameters p, ρ and ρR are calculated. Monoenergetic electron beams have been launched at different times of target compression. The simulation results indicate the creation of high ablation pressure as well as maximum shell areal density by a 50 keV monoenergetic electron beam with intensity 1 PW/cm2 irradiated on the compressed target at a proper time which indeed improves the implosion processes.

A hybrid-drive nonisobaric-ignition scheme for inertial confinement fusion

A new hybrid-drive (HD) nonisobaric ignition scheme of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is proposed, in which a HD pressure to drive implosion dynamics increases via increasing density rather than temperature in the conventional indirect drive (ID) and direct drive (DD) approaches. In this HD (combination of ID and DD) scheme, an assembled target of a spherical hohlraum and a layered deuterium-tritium capsule inside is used. The ID lasers first drive the shock to perform a spherical symmetry implosion and produce a large-scale corona plasma. Then, the DD lasers, whose critical surface in ID corona plasma is far from the radiation ablation front, drive a supersonic electron thermal wave, which slows down to a high-pressure electron compression wave, like a snowplow, piling up the corona plasma into high density and forming a HD pressurized plateau with a large width. The HD pressure is several times the conventional ID and DD ablation pressure and launches an enhanced precursor shock and a continuous compression wave, which give rise to the HD capsule implosion dynamics in a large implosion velocity. The hydrodynamic instabilities at imploding capsule interfaces are suppressed, and the continuous HD compression wave provides main pdV work large enough to hotspot, resulting in the HD nonisobaric ignition. The ignition condition and target design based on this scheme are given theoretically and by numerical simulations. It shows that the novel scheme can significantly suppress implosion asymmetry and hydrodynamic instabilities of current isobaric hotspot ignition design, and a high-gain ICF is promising.

A simulation-based and analytic analysis of the off-Hugoniot response of alternative inertial confinement fusion ablator materials

The attainment of self-propagating fusion burn in an inertial confinement target at the National Ignition Facility will require the use of an ablator with high rocket-efficiency and ablation pressure. The ablation material used during the National Ignition Campaign (Lindl et al. 2014) [1], a glow-discharge polymer (GDP), does not couple as efficiently as simulations indicated to the multiple-shock inducing radiation drive environment created by laser power profile (Robey et al., 2012). We investigate the performance of two other ablators, boron carbide (B4C) and high-density carbon (HDC) compared to the performance of GDP under the same hohlraum conditions. Ablation performance is determined through measurement of the shock speed produced in planar samples of the ablator material subjected to the identical multiple-shock inducing radiation drive environments that are similar to a generic three-shock ignition drive. Simulations are in better agreement with the off-Hugoniot performance of B4C than either HDC or GDP, and analytic estimations of the ablation pressure indicate that while the pressure produced by B4C and GDP is similar when the ablator is allowed to release, the pressure reached by B4C seems to exceed that of HDC when backed by a Au/quartz layer.

Self-similar Solution of the Subsonic Radiative Heat Equations Using a Binary Equation of State

ABSTRACTRadiative subsonic heat waves, and their driven shock waves, are important hydro-radiative phenomena. The high pressure causes hot matter in the rear part of the heat wave to ablate backwards. At the front of the heat wave, this ablation pressure generates a shock wave which propagates ahead of the heat front. Although no self-similar solution of both the ablation and shock regions exists, a solution for the full problem was found in a previous work. Here, we use this model in order to investigate the effect of the equation of state (EOS) on the propagation of radiation-driven shocks. We find that using a single ideal gas EOS for both regions, as used in previous works, yields large errors in describing the shock wave. We use the fact that our solution is composed of two different self-similar solutions, one for the ablation region and one for the shock, and apply two ideal gas EOS (binary-EOS), one for each region, by fitting a detailed tabulated EOS to power laws at different regimes. By comparing the semi-analytic solution with a numerical simulation using a full EOS, we find that the semi-analytic solution describes both the heat and the shock regions well.

Isolating and quantifying cross-beam energy transfer in direct-drive implosions on OMEGA and the National Ignition Facility

The angularly resolved mass ablation rates and ablation-front trajectories for Si-coated CH targets were measured in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion experiments to quantify cross-beam energy transfer (CBET) while constraining the hydrodynamic coupling. A polar-direct-drive laser configuration, where the equatorial laser beams were dropped and the polar beams were repointed from a symmetric direct-drive configuration, was used to limit CBET at the pole while allowing it to persist at the equator. The combination of low- and high-CBET conditions observed in the same implosion allowed for the effects of CBET on the ablation rate and ablation pressure to be determined. Hydrodynamic simulations performed without CBET agreed with the measured ablation rate and ablation-front trajectory at the pole of the target, confirming that the CBET effects on the pole are small. The simulated mass ablation rates and ablation-front trajectories were in excellent agreement with the measurements at all angles when a CBET model based on Randall's equations [C. J. Randall et al., Phys. Fluids 24, 1474 (1981)] was included into the simulations with a multiplier on the CBET gain factor. These measurements were performed on OMEGA and at the National Ignition Facility to access a wide range of plasma conditions, laser intensities, and laser beam geometries. The presence of the CBET gain multiplier required to match the data in all of the configurations tested suggests that additional physics effects, such as intensity variations caused by diffraction, polarization effects, or shortcomings of extending the 1-D Randall model to 3-D, should be explored to explain the differences in observed and predicted drive.

Neutral cluster debris dynamics in droplet-based laser-produced plasma sources

The neutral cluster debris dynamics of a droplet-based laser-produced plasma is studied experimentally and analytically. Experiments were done imaging the debris with a high-speed shadowgraph system and using image processing to determine the droplet debris mean radial velocity dependence on laser pulse irradiance Ee. The data shows a power law dependence between the mean radial debris velocity and the incident irradiance giving with . A scaled analytical model was derived modeling the plasma ablation pressure on the droplet surface as the primary momentum exchange mechanism between the unablated droplet material and the laser pulse. The relationship between droplet debris trajectory and the droplet alignment with the laser was quantified analytically. The derived analytical model determines that the neutral cluster debris trajectory for an ablated droplet is a function of the laser profile fL, the droplet diameter D and the axial misalignment h between the laser axis and the droplet center. The analytical calculations from these models were found to be in good agreement with the measurements. This analysis has practical significance for understanding ablated droplet debris, droplet deformation by laser pulsing, and droplet breakup from very short timescale shocks.

Radiation Hydrodynamic Simulations in the Planar Scheme for the Fundamental Studies of Shock Ignition**supported by the National High-Tech R&D Program (863 Program) of China and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11205143, 11505167)

As a fundamental and crucial research topic in the direct-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF), especially for shock ignition (SI), investigation on the laser coupling with planar low-Z targets is beneficial for deep physical comprehension at the primary phase of SI. The production of the intense shock and the shock coalescence in the multi-layer targets, driven by the 3ω intense laser (351 nm the wavelength), were studied in detail with the 1D and 2D radiation hydrodynamic simulations. It was inferred that the 1D simulation would overrate the shock velocity and the ablation pressure of the spike; the coalescence time and the velocity of the coalescence shock depended evidently on the pulse shape and the start time of the spike. The present study can also provide a semi-quantitative reference for the design of the SI decomposition experiments on the Shenguang-III prototype laser facility.

Beryllium ignition target design for indirect drive NIF experiments

Beryllium (Be) ablator offers multiple advantages over carbon based ablators for indirectly driven NIF ICF ignition targets. These are higher mass ablation rate, ablation pressure and ablation velocity, lower capsule albedo, and higher thermal conductivity at cryogenic temperatures. Such advantages can be used to improve the target robustness and performance. While previous NIF Be target designs exist, they were obtained a long time ago and do not incorporate the latest improved physical understanding and models based upon NIF experiments. Herein, we propose a new NIF Be ignition target design at 1.45 MJ, 430 TW that takes all this knowledge into account.

Laser-driven ablation through fast electrons in PALS experiment

Energy transfer to shock wave in Al and Cu targets irradiated by a laser pulse with intensity of I≈1-50 PW/cm2 and duration of 250 ps was investigated at Prague Asterix Laser System (PALS). The iodine laser provided energy in the range of 100-600 J at the first and third harmonic frequencies. The focal spot radius of laser beam on the target was varied from 160 to 40 μm. The dominant contribution of fast electron energy transfer into the ablation process was found when using the first harmonic radiation, the focal spot radius of 40-100 μm, and the energy of 300-600 J. The fast electron heating results in the growth of ablation pressure from 60 Mbar at the intensity of 10 PW/cm2 to 180 Mbar at the intensity of 50 PW/cm2 and in the growth of the efficiency of the energy conversion into the shock wave from 2 to 7% under the conditions of 2D ablation.

Ablation driven by hot electrons in shock ignition

An analytical model for the ablation driven by hot electrons is developed. The hot electrons are assumed to carry on the totality of the absorbed laser energy. Efficient energy coupling requires to keep the critical surface sufficiently close to the ablation front. To achieve this goal for high laser intensities a short enough laser wavelength is required. Scaling laws for the ablation pressure and the other relevant magnitudes of the ablation cloud are found in terms of the laser and target parameters.

Imaging of the Dynamic Melt Movement Induced by a Pulsed Laser

A special case of an interrupted superheated process was developed, governed by the ablation pressure of a boiling melt, induced by a pulsed Nd:YAG-laser. A kind of cutting process was carried out, but at very low speed to generate a large melt pool that can be well studied. The interaction zone was observed by high speed imaging, with and without illumination. When switching the laser pulse on or off, different dynamic phenomena can be clearly observed, like drilling into a bulk of melt, breaking of a melt bridge, controlled pushing of the melt pool, waves running down, all driven by boiling. After the pulse, the melt smoothens and oscillates and is dragged back upwards by the surface tension forces from the melt shape curvature, ending in a torus-like equilibrium shape. The fundamental understanding that was generated could be applied to improve processes like keyhole laser welding, laser remote fusion cutting or laser drilling

Short-wavelength experiments on laser pulse interaction with extended pre-plasma at the PALS-installation

AbstractThe paper is a continuation of research carried out at Prague Asterix Laser System (PALS) related to the shock ignition (SI) approach in inertial fusion, which was carried out with use of 1ω main laser beam as the main beam generating a shock wave. Two-layer targets were used, consisting of Cu massive planar target coated with a thin polyethylene layer, which, in the case of two-beam irradiation geometry, simulate conditions related to the SI scenario. The investigations presented in this paper are related to the use of 3ω to create ablation pressure for high-power shock wave generation. The interferometric studies of the ablative plasma expansion, complemented by measurements of crater volumes andKαemission, clearly demonstrate the effect of changing the incident laser intensity due to changing the focal radius on efficiency of laser energy transfer to a shock wave and fast electron emission. The efficiency of the energy transfer increases with the radius of the focused laser beam. The pre-plasma does not significantly change the character of this effect. However, it unambiguously results in the increasing temperature of fast electrons, the total energy of which remains very small (<0.1% of the laser energy). This study shows that the optimal radius from the point of view of 3ω radiation energy transfer to the shock wave is the maximal one used in these experiments and equal to 200 µm that corresponds to the minimal effect of two-dimensional (2D)-expansion. Such a result is typical for the ablation process determined by electron conductivity energy transfer under the conditions of one-dimensional or 2D matter expansion without any appreciable effect due to energy transfer by fast electrons. The 2D simulations based on application of the ALANT-HE code and an analytical model that includes generation and transport of hot electrons has been used to support of experimental data.

Coupled hydrodynamic model for laser-plasma interaction and hot electron generation

We present a formulation of the model of laser-plasma interaction (LPI) at hydrodynamical scales that couples the plasma dynamics with linear and nonlinear LPI processes, including the creation and propagation of high-energy electrons excited by parametric instabilities and collective effects. This formulation accounts for laser beam refraction and diffraction, energy absorption due to collisional and resonant processes, and hot electron generation due to the stimulated Raman scattering, two-plasmon decay, and resonant absorption processes. Hot electron (HE) transport and absorption are described within the multigroup angular scattering approximation, adapted for transversally Gaussian electron beams. This multiscale inline LPI-HE model is used to interpret several shock ignition experiments, highlighting the importance of target preheating by HEs and the shortcomings of standard geometrical optics when modeling the propagation and absorption of intense laser pulses. It is found that HEs from parametric instabilities significantly increase the shock pressure and velocity in the target, while decreasing its strength and the overall ablation pressure.

Laser impact welding: Design of apparatus and parametric optimization

Laser impact welding (LIW) is a solid-state, collision-based welding process. Applications may include joining of dissimilar metals for small-scale parts such as those used in medical devices and microelectronics. The current work focuses on the development of the LIW process for industrial applications with commercial available materials. In this technique, a pulse of high power laser light was converted to kinetic energy through the ablation of a coating on the flyer surface. A transparent confining window directed the force of the expanding gas to launch a flyer toward a target plate. A suitable laser system with diagnostics is described. An experimental study of parameters affecting ablation pressure was conducted via an analysis of flyer deformation and launch velocity. A laminated multi-launch package with a CNC-based motion control welding apparatus was constructed with informed selection of components to optimize conversion efficiency. This joining system is used to demonstrate the LIW joining of aluminum and titanium.

Spherical strong-shock generation for shock-ignition inertial fusion

Recent experiments on the Laboratory for Laser Energetics' OMEGA laser have been carried out to produce strong shocks in solid spherical targets with direct laser illumination. The shocks are launched at pressures of several hundred Mbars and reach Gbar upon convergence. The results are relevant to the validation of the shock-ignition scheme and to the development of an OMEGA experimental platform to study material properties at Gbar pressures. The experiments investigate the strength of the ablation pressure and the hot-electron production at incident laser intensities of ∼2 to 6 × 1015 W/cm2 and demonstrate ablation pressures exceeding 300 Mbar, which is crucial to developing a shock-ignition target design for the National Ignition Facility. The timing of the x-ray flash from shock convergence in the center of the solid plastic target is used to infer the ablation and shock pressures. Laser–plasma instabilities produce hot-electrons with a moderate temperature (<100 keV). The instantaneous conversion efficiencies of laser power into hot-electron power reached up to ∼15% in the intensity spike. The large amount of hot electrons is correlated with an earlier x-ray flash and a strong increase in its magnitude. This suggests that hot electrons contribute to the augmentation of the shock strength.

Numerical investigation on target implosions driven by radiation ablation and shock compression in dynamic hohlraums

In a dynamic hohlraum driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) configuration, the target may experience two different kinds of implosions. One is driven by hohlraum radiation ablation, which is approximately symmetric at the equator and poles. The second is caused by the radiating shock produced in Z-pinch dynamic hohlraums, only taking place at the equator. To gain a symmetrical target implosion driven by radiation ablation and avoid asymmetric shock compression is a crucial issue in driving ICF using dynamic hohlraums. It is known that when the target is heated by hohlraum radiation, the ablated plasma will expand outward. The pressure in the shocked converter plasma qualitatively varies linearly with the material temperature. However, the ablation pressure in the ablated plasma varies with 3.5 power of the hohlraum radiation temperature. Therefore, as the hohlraum temperature increases, the ablation pressure will eventually exceed the shock pressure, and the expansion of the ablated plasma will obviously weaken the shock propagation and decrease its velocity after propagating into the ablator plasma. Consequently, longer time duration is provided for the symmetrical target implosion driven by radiation ablation. In this paper these processes are numerically investigated by changing drive currents or varying load parameters. The simulation results show that a critical hohlraum radiation temperature is needed to provide a high enough ablation pressure to decelerate the shock, thus providing long enough time duration for the symmetric fuel compression driven by radiation ablation.