Noble Gas Analysis for the OMEGA Gas Sampling System

The OMEGA Gas Sampling System (OGSS) at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics can be used to study a wide variety of implosion parameters in inertial confinement fusion. By doping a target capsule with carefully chosen detector nuclei, nuclear reactions between fusion products and detector nuclei can produce noble gas isotopes.~Following a capsule implosion, these gases are pumped out of the target chamber and are collected into sample bottles.~We have developed a bench-top analysis station at Geneseo capable of determining the number of noble gas atoms present in the sample bottles.~A needle valve is used to admit gas from the sample bottles into a vacuum chamber at a controlled rate.~The conductance of the needle valve is a function of pressure and gas type. A residual gas analyzer (RGA) is used to measure the partial pressures of each type of noble gas in the vacuum chamber. The RGA is calibrated with a calibrated leak, which allows known amounts of different gases into the chamber at a constant rate.~ Analysis of the gasses collected following a D$^{3}$He implosion is currently underway.