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Igniting ICF experiments with increased compression using a ramped laser pulse at the National Ignition Facility

ORAL

Abstract

Increasing fuel compression is key for realizing increased yield for a given drive energy in inertial confinement fusion implosions. The SQ-n design [1] at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) uses a ramped laser pulse to generate a smoothly accelerating implosion, which is predicted, when combined with improved capsule dopant profiles, to reduce mixing and thereby increase fuel compression [2,3]. Prior experiments at subcale (844 um inner radius capsules) and at full scale (1050 um inner radius capsules, 1.9 MJ laser energy) have demonstrated increased compression compared with other implosions at NIF that also use high-density-carbon ablators [4,5]. Here we report on full scale SQ-n experiments using 2.05 MJ of laser energy, which again confirm increased compression of the fuel, now with MJ fusion yield.

[1] Clark et al., Physics of Plasmas 29, 052710 (2022)

[2] Do et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 215003 (2022)

[3] Weber et al., Phys. Rev. E 108, L023202 (2023)

[4] Tommasini et al., Phys. Rev. Res. 5, L042034 (2023)

[5] Tommasini et al., Phys. Plasmas 32, 032707 (2025)

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Publication: <br>

Presenters

  • Seth Davidovits

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Authors

  • Seth Davidovits

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Daniel T Casey

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence LIvermore National Laboratory

  • Riccardo Tommasini

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Daniel S Clark

    LLNL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Kevin L Baker

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Alexandre A Do

    Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Otto L Landen

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Lab

  • Vladimir A Smalyuk

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Christopher R Weber

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Benjamin Bachmann

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Laurent Divol

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Tina Ebert

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Gareth N Hall

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Edward V Marley

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Laboratory for Laser Energetics

  • Edward P Hartouni

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Shaun M Kerr

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Shahab Khan

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Christine M Krauland

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Andrea L Kritcher

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Marius Millot

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Alastair S Moore

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Ryan C Nora

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Arthur E Pak

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Sonja Rogers

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Mike S Rubery

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • David Schlossberg

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Lab

  • David Jerome Strozzi

    LLNL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Matthew Peter Selwood

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Brandon Woodworth

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Travis M Briggs

    Lawrence Livemore National Laboratory

  • Dean M Holunga

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Abbas Nikroo

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Michael Stadermann

    Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab