High-energy-density laser facilities and advances in dynamic compression techniques have expanded access to material states in the Terapascal regime relevant to inertial confinement fusion, planetary science, and geophysics. However, experimentally determining the material temperature in these extreme conditions has remained a difficult challenge. Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS), referring to the modulations in x-ray absorption above an absorption edge from photoelectrons’ interactions with neighboring atoms, has proven to be a versatile and robust technique for probing material temperature and density for mid-to-high Z elements under dynamic compression. The current platform at the National Ignition Facility has developed six configurations for EXAFS measurements between 7 and 18 keV for different absorption edges (Fe K, Co K, Cu K, Ta L3, Pb L3, and Zr K) using a curved-crystal spectrometer and a bright, continuum foil x-ray source. In this work, we describe the platform geometry, x-ray source performance, spectrometer resolution and throughput, design considerations, and data in ambient and dynamic-compression conditions.

The interface between the capsule ablator and fuel ice layer is susceptible to hydrodynamic instabilities. The subsequent mixing of hot ablator material into the ice reduces fuel compression at stagnation and is a candidate for reduced capsule performance. The ability to diagnose ice–ablator mix is critical to understanding and improving stability at this interface. Combining the crystal backlighter imager with the single line of sight camera on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) allows direct measurement of ice–ablator mix by providing multiple quasi-monochromatic radiographs of layered capsule implosions per experiment with high spatial (∼12 μm) and temporal (∼35 ps) resolution. The narrow bandwidth of this diagnostic platform allows radiography of the inner edge of the capsule limb close to stagnation without capsule self-emission contaminating the data and removes opacity uncertainties typically associated with the spectral content of the radiograph. Analysis of radiographic data via a parameterized forward-fitting Abel inversion technique provides measurements of the distribution of mix mass inwards from the ice–ablator interface. The sensitivity of this mix measurement technique was demonstrated by applying it to layered experiments in which the stability of the ice–ablator interface was expected to vary significantly. Additional experiments suggest that high-density carbon capsules that employ a buried-layer dopant profile suffer from mixing at the innermost doped–undoped interface. Data from these experiments suggest that opacity models used in hydrodynamic simulations of NIF experiments can potentially over-predict the opacity of doped capsules. LLNL-JRNL-850535-DRAFT.

As part of a program to measure phase transition timescales in materials under dynamic compression, we have designed new x-ray imaging diagnostics to record multiple x-ray diffraction measurements during a single laser-driven experiment. Our design places several ns-gated hybrid CMOS (hCMOS) sensors within a few cm of a laser-driven target. The sensors must be protected from an extremely harsh environment, including debris, electromagnetic pulses, and unconverted laser light. Another key challenge is reducing the x-ray background relative to the faint diffraction signal. Building on the success of our predecessor (Target Diffraction In Situ), we implemented a staged approach to platform development. First, we built a demonstration diagnostic (Gated Diffraction Development Diagnostic) with two hCMOS sensors to confirm we could adequately protect them from the harsh environment and also acquire acceptable diffraction data. This allowed the team to quickly assess the risks and address the most significant challenges. We also collected scientifically useful data during development. Leveraging what we learned, we recently developed a much more ambitious instrument (Flexible Imaging Diffraction Diagnostic for Laser Experiments) that can field up to eight hCMOS sensors in a flexible geometry and participate in back-to-back shots at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The design also allows for future iterations, such as faster hCMOS sensors and an embedded x-ray streak camera. The enhanced capabilities of the new instrument required a much more complex design, and the unexpected issues encountered on the first few shots at NIF remind us that complexity has consequences. Our progress in addressing these challenges is described herein, as is our current focus on improving data quality by reducing x-ray background and quantifying the uncertainties of our diffraction measurements.

Large laser facilities have recently enabled material characterization at the pressures of Earth and Super-Earth cores. However, the temperature of the compressed materials has been largely unknown, or solely relied on models and simulations, due to lack of diagnostics under these challenging conditions. Here, we report on temperature, density, pressure, and local structure of copper determined from extended x-ray absorption fine structure and velocimetry up to 1 Terapascal. These results nearly double the highest pressure at which extended x-ray absorption fine structure has been reported in any material. In this work, the copper temperature is unexpectedly found to be much higher than predicted when adjacent to diamond layer(s), demonstrating the important influence of the sample environment on the thermal state of materials; this effect may introduce additional temperature uncertainties in some previous experiments using diamond and provides new guidance for future experimental design.

Magnetizing a cryogenic deuterium–tritium (DT)-layered inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosion can improve performance by reducing thermal conduction and improving DT-alpha confinement in the hot spot. A room-temperature, magnetized indirect-drive ICF platform at the National Ignition Facility has been developed, using a high-Z, high-resistivity AuTa4 alloy as the hohlraum wall material. Experiments show a 2.5× increase in deuterium–deuterium (DD) neutron yield and a 0.8-keV increase in hot-spot temperature with the application of a 12-T B-field. For an initial 26-T B-field, we observed a 2.9× yield increase and a 1.1-keV temperature increase, with the inferred burn-averaged B-field in the compressed hot spot estimated to be 7.1 ± 1.8 kT using measured primary DD-n and secondary DT-n neutron yields.

A new project is underway at the National Ignition Facility with the goal of applying a seed magnetic field to the fusion fuel in an indirect drive hohlraum implosion and quantifying the effect on the hot-spot temperature, shape and neutron yield. Magnetizing fusion fuel is calculated to reduce heat loss from the implosion core by constraining the motion of electrons and fusion-generated alpha particles; this can improve the chances of achieving high-gain fusion in a laboratory plasma. We describe the goals of this project and the significant scientific and technological challenges which must be overcome for this project to succeed.

The application of an external 26 Tesla axial magnetic field to a D_{2} gas-filled capsule indirectly driven on the National Ignition Facility is observed to increase the ion temperature by 40% and the neutron yield by a factor of 3.2 in a hot spot with areal density and temperature approaching what is required for fusion ignition [1]. The improvements are determined from energy spectral measurements of the 2.45 MeV neutrons from the D(d,n)^{3}He reaction, and the compressed central core B field is estimated to be ∼4.9  kT using the 14.1 MeV secondary neutrons from the D(T,n)^{4}He reactions. The experiments use a 30 kV pulsed-power system to deliver a ∼3  μs current pulse to a solenoidal coil wrapped around a novel high-electrical-resistivity AuTa_{4} hohlraum. Radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations are consistent with the experiment.

New short-pulse kilojoule, Petawatt-class lasers, which have recently come online and are coupled to large-scale, many-beam long-pulse facilities, undoubtedly serve as very exciting tools to capture transformational science opportunities in high energy density physics. These short-pulse lasers also happen to reside in a unique laser regime: very high-energy (kilojoule), relatively long (multi-picosecond) pulse-lengths, and large (10s of micron) focal spots, where their use in driving energetic particle beams is largely unexplored. Proton acceleration via Target Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA) using the Advanced Radiographic Capability (ARC) short-pulse laser at the National Ignition Facility in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is demonstrated for the first time, and protons of up to 18 MeV are measured using laser irradiation of >1 ps pulse-lengths and quasi-relativistic (∼1018 W/cm2) intensities. This is indicative of a super-ponderomotive electron acceleration mechanism that sustains acceleration over long (multi-picosecond) time-scales and allows for proton energies to be achieved far beyond what the well-established scalings of proton acceleration via TNSA would predict at these modest intensities. Furthermore, the characteristics of the ARC laser (large ∼100 μm diameter focal spot, flat spatial profile, multi-picosecond, relatively low prepulse) provide acceleration conditions that allow for the investigation of 1D-like particle acceleration. A high flux ∼ 50 J of laser-accelerated protons is experimentally demonstrated. A new capability in multi-picosecond particle-in-cell simulation is applied to model the data, corroborating the high proton energies and elucidating the physics of multi-picosecond particle acceleration.

We study continuum x-ray emission from hot plasma at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). We find that the x-ray yield in the multi-keV photon energy range is larger in Ti than in Ag or Au. This apparent paradox is due to Ti K-shell vacancies generated by the extraordinary energy density achieved by the NIF lasers. This is supported by direct observations of large continuum enhancement above the Ti K-series limit due to both free–bound (recombination) emission and strong Lyα (H-like) emission. Detailed calculations agree well with our measurements and support our conclusions.

Relativistic electron temperatures were measured from kilojoule, subrelativistic laser-plasma interactions. Experiments show an order of magnitude higher temperatures than expected from a ponderomotive scaling, where temperatures of up to 2.2 MeV were generated using an intensity of 1×10^{18}W/cm^{2}. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations suggest that electrons gain superponderomotive energies by stochastic acceleration as they sample a large area of rapidly changing laser phase. We demonstrate that such high temperatures are possible from subrelativistic intensities by using lasers with long pulse durations and large spatial scales.

In Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) High- Energy-Density Physics (HED) and Indirect Drive Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF-ID) programs conducted numerous campaigns on the OMEGA and OMEGA-EP (EP) laser systems. This was the 21st year of National Lab collaborative experiments at OMEGA since the Nova Laser at LLNL shut down in 1999, building upon prior collaborations. In FY19 overall, these LLNL programs led 488 target shots, with 259 shots using just the OMEGA laser system and 229 shots using just the EP laser system. Approximately 33% of the total number of shots (84 OMEGA shots and 79 EP shots) supported the Indirect Drive Inertial Confinement Fusion Campaign. The remaining 67% (175 OMEGA-only shots and 150 EP-only shots) were dedicated to experiments for High-Energy-Density Physics. Highlights of the various HED and ICF-ID campaigns are summarized in the following reports. In addition to these experiments, LLNL Principal Investigators (PIs) led a variety of Laboratory Basic Science campaigns using OMEGA and EP, including 80 target shots using just OMEGA, 68 shots using just EP, and 7 Joint shots using both lasers together. The highlights of these are also summarized, following the ICF and HED campaigns. Overall, LLNL PIs led a total of 636 shots at LLE in FY 2019. In addition, LLNL PIs supported 7 NLUF shots on Omega and 32 NLUF shots on EP in collaboration with the academic community.

High-mode perturbations and low-mode asymmetries were measured in the deceleration phase of indirectly driven, deuterium gas filled inertial confinement fusion capsule implosions at convergence ratios of 10 to 15, using a new “enhanced emission” technique at the National Ignition Facility [E. M. Campbell et al., AIP Conf. Proc. 429, 3 (1998)]. In these experiments, a high spatial resolution Kirkpatrick-Baez microscope was used to image the x-ray emission from the inner surface of a high-density-carbon capsule's shell. The use of a high atomic number dopant in the shell enabled time-resolved observations of shell perturbations penetrating into the hot spot. This allowed the effects of the perturbations and asymmetries on degrading neutron yield to be directly measured. In particular, mix induced radiation losses of ∼400 J from the hot spot resulted in a neutron yield reduction of a factor of ∼2. In a subsequent experiment with a significantly increased level of short-mode initial perturbations, shown through the enhanced imaging technique to be highly organized radially, the neutron yield dropped an additional factor of ∼2.

The Joint Enhanced Diagnostics Initiative (JEDI) collaboration between the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) has the goal of enhancing the experimental capabilities of the NIF to enable collaborative experiments of interest to both the U.S. and U.K. stockpile stewardship activities.

The Capseed campaign goal is to measure shock front velocity non-uniformities in Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) ablator materials and quantify the level of non-uniformity caused by intrinsic effects. This is done using the Omega High Resolution Velocimeter (OHRV) to obtain velocity maps of the optically reflecting shock front following release of the ablator material into either PMMA for the warm experiments or cryogenic deuterium for the cryo experiments. For the three half-days in FY17 the focus was twofold: complete measurements on the impact of oxygen heterogeneity and oxygen mitigation layers for glow discharge polymer (GDP), and begin measuring velocity non-uniformities on deep release from Be, GDP, and highdensity carbon (HDC) into D2 with improved velocity sensitivity.

High-resolution, high-energy X-ray backlighters are very active area of research for radiography experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) [Miller et al., Nucl. Fusion 44, S228 (2004)], in particular those aiming at obtaining Compton-scattering produced radiographs from the cold, dense fuel surrounding the hot spot. We report on experiments to generate and characterize point-projection-geometry backlighters using short pulses from the advanced radiographic capability (ARC) [Crane et al., J. Phys. 244, 032003 (2010); Di Nicola et al., Proc. SPIE 2015, 93450I-12], at the NIF, focused on Au micro-wires. We show the first hard X-ray radiographs, at photon energies exceeding 60 keV, of static objects obtained with 30 ps-long ARC laser pulses, and the measurements of strength of the X-ray emission, the pulse duration and the source size of the Au micro-wire backlighters. For the latter, a novel technique has been developed and successfully applied.

Room temperature or “warm” (273 K) indirect drive hohlraum experiments have been conducted on the National Ignition Facility with laser energies up to 1.26 MJ and compared to similar cryogenic or “cryo” (∼20 K) experiments. Warm experiments use neopentane (C5H12) as the low pressure hohlraum fill gas instead of helium, and propane (C3H8) to replace the cryogenic DT or DHe3 capsule fill. The increased average Z of the hohlraum fill leads to increased inverse bremsstrahlung absorption and an overall hotter hohlraum plasma in simulations. The cross beam energy transfer (CBET) from outer laser beams (pointed toward the laser entrance hole) to inner beams (pointed at the equator) was inferred indirectly from measurements of Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS). These experiments show that a similar hot spot self-emission shape can be produced with less CBET in warm hohlraums. The measured inner cone SRS reflectivity (as a fraction of incident power neglecting CBET) is ∼2.5× less in warm than cryo shots with similar hot spot shapes, due to a less need for CBET. The measured outer-beam stimulated the Brillouin scattering power that was higher in the warm shots, leading to a ceiling on power to avoid the optics damage. These measurements also show that the CBET induced by the flow where the beams cross can be effectively mitigated by a 1.5 Å wavelength shift between the inner and outer beams. A smaller scale direct comparison indicates that warm shots give a more prolate implosion than cryo shots with the same wavelength shift and pulse shape. Finally, the peak radiation temperature was found to be between 5 and 7 eV higher in the warm than the corresponding cryo experiments after accounting for differences in backscatter.

Hydrodynamic instability growth experiments with three-dimensional (3-D) surface-roughness modulations were performed on plastic (CH) shell spherical implosions at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The initial capsule outer-surface roughness was similar to the standard specifications ("native roughness") used in a majority of implosions on NIF. At a convergence ratio of similar to 3, the measured tent modulations were close to those predicted by 3-D simulations (within similar to 15-20%), while measured 3-D, broadband modulations were similar to 3-4 times larger than those simulated based on the growth of the known imposed initial surface modulations. One of the hypotheses to explain the results is based on the increased instability amplitudes due to modulations of the oxygen content in the bulk of the capsule. These new experiments results have prompted looking for ways to reduce UV light exposure during target fabrication.

In FY16, LLNL’s High-Energy-Density Physics (HED) and Indirect Drive Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF-ID) programs conducted several campaigns on the OMEGA laser system and on the EP laser system, as well as campaigns that used the OMEGA and EP beams jointly. Overall, these LLNL programs led 430 target shots in FY16, with 304 shots using just the OMEGA laser system, and 126 shots using just the EP laser system. Approximately 21% of the total number of shots (77 OMEGA shots and 14 EP shots) supported the Indirect Drive Inertial Confinement Fusion Campaign (ICF-ID). The remaining 79% (227 OMEGA shots and 112 EP shots) were dedicated to experiments for High-Energy-Density Physics (HED). Highlights of the various HED and ICF campaigns are summarized in the following reports. In addition to these experiments, LLNL Principal Investigators led a variety of Laboratory Basic Science campaigns using OMEGA and EP, including 81 target shots using just OMEGA and 42 shots using just EP. The highlights of these are also summarized, following the ICF and HED campaigns. Overall, LLNL PIs led a total of 553 shots at LLE in FY 2016. In addition, LLNL PIs also supported 57 NLUF shots on Omega and 31 NLUF shots on EP, in collaboration with the academic community.

In FY15, LLNL’s High-Energy-Density Physics (HED) and Indirect Drive Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF-ID) programs conducted several campaigns on the OMEGA laser system and on the EP laser system, as well as campaigns that used the OMEGA and EP beams jointly. Overall these LLNL programs led 468 target shots in FY15, with 315 shots using just the OMEGA laser system, 145 shots using just the EP laser system, and 8 Joint shots using Omega and EP together. Approximately 25% of the total number of shots (56 OMEGA shots and 67 EP shots, including the 8 Joint shots) supported the Indirect Drive Inertial Confinement Fusion Campaign (ICF-ID). The remaining 75% (267 OMEGA shots and 86 EP shots) were dedicated to experiments for High-Energy-Density Physics (HED). Highlights of the various HED and ICF campaigns are summarized in the following reports.