Direct-Drive, Cryogenic Target Implosions on OMEGA

Direct-drive spherical implosions of cryogenic, D2-filled capsules are performed on the 60-beam OMEGA laser system [T. R. Boehly, D. L. Brown, R. S. Craxton, R. L. Keck, J. P. Knauer, J. H. Kelly, T. J. Kessler, S. A. Kumpan, S. J. Loucks, S. A. Letzring, F. J. Marshall, R. L. McCrory, S. F. B. Morse, W. Seka, J. M. Soures, and C. P. Verdon, Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)]. The targets are energy scaled from the base line ignition design developed for the National Ignition Facility [W. J. Hogan et al., Nucl. Fusion 41, 567 (2001)]. Thin-walled (∼4μm), ∼860μm diam deuterated polymer shells are permeation filled with D2 gas and cooled to the triple point (∼18.7K). Cryogenic ice layers with a uniformity of ∼2μm rms are formed and maintained. The targets are imploded with high-contrast pulse shapes with full single-beam smoothing (1THz bandwidth, two-dimensional smoothing by spectral dispersion with polarization smoothing) to study the effects of the acceleration- and deceleration-phase Rayleigh–Taylor growth o...