Development of backlighting sources for a Compton Radiography diagnostic of Inertial Confinement Fusion targets

Abstract

Abstract. An important diagnostic tool for inertial confinement fusion is time-resolved imaging of the dense cold fuel surrounding the hot spot. Here we report on the source and diagnostic development of hard x-ray radiography and on the first radiographs of direct drive implosions obtained at photon energies up to about 100keV, where the Compton effect is the dominant contributor to the shell opacity. The radiographs of direct drive, plastic shell implosions obtained at the OMEGA laser facility have a spatial resolution of ~ 10um and a temporal resolution of ~10ps. This novel Compton Radiography is an invaluable diagnostic tool for Inertial Confinement Fusion targets, and will be integrated at the National Ignition Facility (NIF).

Highly efficient, easily spectrally tunable X-ray backlighting for the study of extreme matter states

“…Indeed, the size of the backlighter in this method has to be smaller than the expected spatial resolution (10 mm or less). In the case of hard X-rays (K a emission), studies of various backlighter geometries have been performed Tommasini et al, 2008;Baton et al, 2008;Szabo et al, 2009;King et al, 2009). The results are encouraging but it remains technically difficult to produce bright X-ray point sources in order to reach the desired spatial resolution.…”