Beryllium ignition target design for indirect drive NIF experiments

Abstract

Beryllium (Be) ablator offers multiple advantages over carbon based ablators for indirectly driven NIF ICF ignition targets. These are higher mass ablation rate, ablation pressure and ablation velocity, lower capsule albedo, and higher thermal conductivity at cryogenic temperatures. Such advantages can be used to improve the target robustness and performance. While previous NIF Be target designs exist, they were obtained a long time ago and do not incorporate the latest improved physical understanding and models based upon NIF experiments. Herein, we propose a new NIF Be ignition target design at 1.45 MJ, 430 TW that takes all this knowledge into account.