Plastic ablator ignition capsule design for the National Ignition Facility

Abstract

This paper describes current efforts to develop a plastic ablator capsule design for the first ignition attempt on the National Ignition Facility. The trade-offs in capsule scale and laser energy that must be made to achieve ignition probabilities comparable to those with other candidate ablators, beryllium and high-density carbon, are emphasized. Large numbers of 1-D simulations, meant to assess the statistical behavior of the target design, as well as 2-D simulations to assess the target's susceptibility to Rayleigh-Taylor growth are discussed. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.