The Nike krypton fluoride laser ͓S. P. Obenschain, S. E. Bodner, D. Colombant, et al., Phys. Plasmas 3, 2098 ͑1996͔͒ is used to accelerate planar plastic foils to velocities that for the first time reach 1000 km/s. Collision of the highly accelerated deuterated polystyrene foil with a stationary target produces ϳGbar shock pressures and results in heating of the foil to thermonuclear temperatures. The impact conditions are diagnosed using DD fusion neutron yield, with ϳ10 6 neutrons produced during the collision. Time-of-flight neutron detectors are used to measure the ion temperature upon impact, which reaches 2-3 keV.
Suppression of hydrodynamic instabilities is very crucial for the ultimate goal of inertial fusion energy (IFE). A high-Z doped plastic of CHBr (brominated polystyrene) ablator is a very promising candidate to suppress the ablative Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) instability in a directly laser-driven IFE target. When a CHBr target is irradiated by intense laser beams, bromine atoms in the corona plasma emit strong radiation. The strong radiation drives the radiative ablation front inside the CHBr targets. This radiative ablation in the high-Z doped plastic target has many advantages for the suppression of the growth of the RT instability in analogy to the indirect-drive approach, i.e., large mass ablation rate, long density scale length and low peak density. Two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamic simulation shows significant suppression of the RT instability in a CHBr target compared to an undoped polystyrene (CH) target. RT growth rate, calculated theoretically using the Betti–Goncharov procedure with a one-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamic simulation code, is in good agreement with the 2D calculations. Experiments were performed at the GEKKO XII– [C. Yamanaka et al., IEEE J. Quantum Electron. QE-17, 1639 (1981)] HIPER (High Intensity Plasma Experimental Research) laser facility. The trajectory of a laser-driven CHBr target observed in the experiment was reproduced fairly well by the simulation. The radiative ablation front formed inside a directly laser-driven CHBr target was clearly observed for the first time. The strong suppression of the RT instability in the CHBr target was confirmed using the face-on and side-on x-ray backlighting technique. The high-Z doped ablator can be applied to high density cryogenic deuterium–deuterium and deuterium–tritium compression, because the hydrogen-isotopes are nearly transparent to x rays, which are transmitted through the ablator from the laser-irradiation side.
The principal Hugoniot for liquid hydrogen was obtained up to 55 GPa under laser-driven shock loading. Pressure and density of compressed hydrogen were determined by impedance-matching to a quartz standard. The shock temperature was independently measured from the brightness of the shock front. Hugoniot data of hydrogen provide a good benchmark to modern theories of condensed matter. The initial number density of liquid hydrogen is lower than that for liquid deuterium, and this results in shock compressed hydrogen having a higher compression and higher temperature than deuterium at the same shock pressure.
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