Octahedral Hohlraum Research Articles

Laser repointing scheme for octahedral spherical hohlraums on the SGIII laser facility

The novel octahedral spherical hohlraum can provide an ideal and practical approach for the next generation of laser systems to support both direct and indirect drive to achieve predictable and reproducible fusion gain via multiple schemes. To demonstrate its advantage in a naturally high symmetry at a cylindrically configured laser facility, it requires to repoint the laser beams to approach as close as possible the ideal octahedral beam configuration with an injection angle (the angle between a beam and the normal direction of its laser entrance hole (LEH)) ranging from 50° to 60°. We report our investigation and experiment on the optimum repointing scheme at the SGIII facility, which uses 32 beams, with 8 beams entering each polar LEH at 49.5° and 55°, and 4 beams entering each equatorial LEH at 61.5° and 62.1°. It contains residual imbalance between the polar and equatorial beams, leading to an asymmetry dominated by the spherical harmonic Y20 mode, which can be remarkably reduced by the stronger backscatters of equatorial beams. Our experiment demonstrated the feasibility of the 32-beam optimum repointing scheme and generation of 175 eV under 86 kJ inside a 2.4-mm-radius octahedral hohlraum with 0.7-mm-radius LEHs, which provided a strong support for the later experiment on proof-of-concept of octahedral spherical hohlraum [Lan et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 245001 (2021)]. 2D simulations on LEH closure agree well with the observations. This work opens a novel way of realization of a quasi-spherical irradiation at a cylindrically configured laser facility without supplementary symmetry control.

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

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.

First Inertial Confinement Fusion Implosion Experiment in Octahedral Spherical Hohlraum

In inertial confinement approaches to fusion, the asymmetry of target implosion is a major obstacle to achieving high gain in the laboratory. A recently proposed octahedral spherical hohlraum makes it possible to naturally create spherical target irradiation without supplementary symmetry control. Before any decision is made to pursue an ignition-scale laser system based on the octahedral hohlraum, one needs to test the concept with the existing facilities. Here, we report a proof-of-concept experiment for the novel octahedral hohlraum geometry on the cylindrically configured SGIII laser facility without a symmetry control. All polar and equatorial self-emission images of the compressed target show a near round shape of convergence ratio 15 under both square and shaped laser pulses. The observed implosion performances agree well with the ideal spherical implosion simulation. It also shows limitations with using the existing facilities and adds further weight to the need to move to a spherical port geometry for future ignition laser facilities.

A new ignition hohlraum design for indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11435011 and 11575034).

In this paper, a six-cylinder-port hohlraum is proposed to provide high symmetry flux on capsule. It is designed to ignite a capsule with 1.2-mm radius in indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Flux symmetry and laser energy are calculated by using three-dimensional view factor method and laser energy balance in hohlraum. Plasma conditions are analyzed based on the two-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamic simulations. There is no Ylm (l ⩽ 4) asymmetry in the six-cylinder-port hohlraum when the influences of laser entrance holes (LEHs) and laser spots cancel each other out with suitable target parameters. A radiation drive with 300 eV and good flux symmetry can be achieved by using a laser energy of 2.3 MJ and peak power of 500 TW. According to the simulations, the electron temperature and the electron density on the wall of laser cone are high and low, respectively, which are similar to those of outer cones in the hohlraums on National Ignition Facility (NIF). And the laser intensity is also as low as those of NIF outer cones. So the backscattering due to laser plasma interaction (LPI) is considered to be negligible. The six-cyliner-port hohlraum could be superior to the traditional cylindrical hohlraum and the octahedral hohlraum in both higher symmetry and lower backscattering without supplementary technology at an acceptable laser energy level. It is undoubted that the hohlraum will add to the diversity of ICF approaches.

Study on size of laser entrance hole shield for ignition octahedral spherical hohlraums

AbstractIn this paper, the influences of laser entrance hole shields on capsule symmetry and coupling efficiency of an ignition octahedral spherical hohlraum are studied using analytical model and three-dimensional Monte-Carlo simulations. As a result, there are two critical shield radii at which the capsule asymmetry tends to minimum, and the coupling efficiency from hohlraum to capsule reaches its maximum when the shield size is taken around the second critical radius. For the ignition octahedral hohlraums used in our study, the first critical radius is 0.625 mm with a capsule asymmetry of 0.24%, and the second is 0.86 mm with 0.26%, and the asymmetry is smaller than 0.58% for shields’ radius in the range of 0.44 and 0.88 mm, which therefore leaves much flexibility in the shield radius design even the shields have an expansion under radiation ablation. The initial shield radius can be taken around the first critical radius in the ignition target design, not only to have a minimum initial capsule radiation asymmetry, but also to get a minimum asymmetry and highest coupling efficiency during the main pulse of drive. Finally, the relative flux of laser spot, wall and shields is 2.2:1:0.6 for our ignition octahedral spherical hohlraum model from the Monte-Carlo simulations.

Novel spherical hohlraum with cylindrical laser entrance holes and shields

Our recent works [K. Lan et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 010704 (2014); K. Lan et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 052704 (2014)] have shown that the octahedral spherical hohlraums are superior to the cylindrical hohlraums in both higher symmetry during the capsule implosion and lower backscatter without supplementary technology. However, both the coupling efficiency from the drive laser energy to the capsule and the capsule symmetry decrease remarkably when larger laser entrance holes (LEHs) are used. In addition, the laser beams injected at angles > 45° transport close to the hohlraum wall, thus the wall blowoff causes the LEH to close faster and results in strong laser plasma interactions inside the spherical hohlraums. In this letter, we propose a novel octahedral hohlraum with LEH shields and cylindrical LEHs to alleviate these problems. From our theoretical study, with the LEH shields, the laser coupling efficiency is significantly increased and the capsule symmetry is remarkably improved in the spherical hohlraums. The cylindrical LEHs take advantage of the cylindrical hohlraum near the LEH and mitigate the influence of the blowoff on laser transport inside a spherical hohlraum. The cylindrical LEHs can also be applied to the rugby and elliptical hohlraums.

Octahedral spherical hohlraum and its laser arrangement for inertial fusion

A recent publication [K. Lan et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 010704 (2014)] proposed a spherical hohlraum with six laser entrance holes of octahedral symmetry at a specific hohlraum-to-capsule radius ratio of 5.14 for inertial fusion study, which has robust high symmetry during the capsule implosion and superiority on low backscatter without supplementary technology. This paper extends the previous one by studying the laser arrangement and constraints of octahedral hohlraum in detail. As a result, it has serious beam crossing at θL≤45°, and θL=50° to 60° is proposed as the optimum candidate range for the golden octahedral hohlraum, here θL is the opening angle that the laser quad beam makes with the Laser Entrance Hole (LEH) normal direction. In addition, the design of the LEH azimuthal angle should avoid laser spot overlapping on hohlraum wall and laser beam transferring outside hohlraum from a neighbor LEH. The octahedral hohlraums are flexible and can be applicable to diverse inertial fusion drive approaches. This paper also applies the octahedral hohlraum to the recent proposed hybrid indirect-direct drive approach.

High flux symmetry of the spherical hohlraum with octahedral 6LEHs at the hohlraum-to-capsule radius ratio of 5.14

In the present Letter, we investigate a spherical hohlraums with octahedral six laser entrance holes (LEHs) for inertial fusion, which has advantages over the conventional hohlraums of cylindrical geometry since it contains only one cone at each LEH and the problems caused by the beam overlap and crossed-beam energy transfer can be eliminated and the backscattering can be reduced. In particular, our study indicates that at a specific hohlraum-to-capsule radius ratio, i.e., the golden ratio, the flux asymmetry on capsule can be significantly reduced. From our study, this golden octahedral hohlraum has robust high symmetry, low plasma filling and low backscattering. Though the golden octahedral hohlraum needs $30\%$ more laser energy than traditional cylinder for producing the ignition radiation pulse of 300 eV, it is worth for a robust high symmetry and low backscattering. The proposed octahedral hohlraum is also flexible and can be applicable to diverse inertial fusion drive approaches. As an application, we design an ignition octahedral hohlraum for the hybrid drive.