Record Energetics for an Inertial Fusion Implosion at NIF

Inertial confinement fusion seeks to create burning plasma conditions in a spherical capsule implosion, which requires efficiently absorbing the driver energy in the capsule, transferring that energy into kinetic energy of the imploding DT fuel and then into internal energy of the fuel at stagnation. We report new implosions conducted on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) with several improvements on recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 245003 (2018); Phys. Rev. E 102, 023210 (2020)]: larger capsules, thicker fuel layers to mitigate fuel-ablator mix, and new symmetry control via cross-beam energy transfer; at modest velocities, these experiments achieve record values for the implosion energetics figures of merit as well as fusion yield for a NIF experiment.Received 25 August 2020Revised 27 October 2020Accepted 10 December 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.025001© 2021 American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasIndirect driveInertial confinement fusionPlasma fusionPlasma Physics