FPN03-51

New Inertial Fusion Implosion Technique Studied

August 13, 2003

Recently (FPN03-21) scientists at Sandia National Laboratory have had stunning success in generating x-rays to implode fusion pellets by driving high current through an array of wires surrounding the capsules. Now a new techique using a "laser-driven analog" of this techique has been created using the OMEGA laser at the University of Rochester.

Forty beams of the OMEGA laser are incident on a 20-micron thin-walled capsule filled with 1.5 atm of Xenon gas. A shock is driven in the Xenon, which radiates so strongly that it collapses to a thin dense layer. This dense layer is opaque to radiation and so functions as a hohlraum wall. The techique may lead to being able to replace the rigid hohlraums that are currently envisaged for indirect drive laser fusion.

Scientists say that this technique has potential applications as an x-ray source for radiography and probing, and as a driver for opacity and implosion experiments.

For further information, visit http://www.llnl.gov/nif/icf/icf.html and go to the March-April 2003 Bimonthly Update