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Sunahara, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Sunahara, A..

9 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Fast heating of fuel assembled in a spherical deuterated polystyrene shell target by counter-irradiating tailored laser pulses delivered by a HAMA 1 Hz ICF driver

Fast heating is a method of heating an assembled high-density plasma into a hot state by irradiating it with short-duration (sub-picosecond), high-intensity ($>$ $10^{18}$ W ${\rm cm}^{-2}$ ) laser pulses before the plasma expands and dissolves hydrodynamically. In this paper, we present detailed experimental results of fast heating fuel assembled in a spherical deuterated polystyrene shell target of 500 ${\mu}$ m diameter and 7 μm thickness with counterbeam illumination by using a HAMA 1 Hz, 5.9 J inertial confinement fusion laser driver with pulse tailoring. These tailored pulses contain three pulses in sequence: a 'foot' pulse of 2.4 J/25 ns, a 'spike' pulse of 0.5 J/300 ps and a 'heater' pulse of 0.4 J/110 fs; these pulses are designed to assemble the fuel and heat it. By varying the energy of the foot pulse, we find that fast heating the fuel is achieved only if the fuel is weakly ablated by the foot pulse and then shock-assembled by the spike pulse into the target centre so that the heater pulse can access the fuel with a focal intensity greater than $10^{18}$ W ${\rm cm}^{-2}$ . Without a foot pulse, the heater pulse contributes to assembling the fuel. For higher foot-pulse energies, the heater pulse drives a hydrodynamic motion with speeds of the order 107 cm ${\rm s}^{-1}$ with intensities of the order $10^{17}$ W ${\rm cm}^{-2}$ , resulting in re-assembling and additional heating of the pre-assembled fuel. Once a shock-assembled core is achieved at the target centre, we succeed qualitatively in fast heating the core for shots in sequence with variations of laser energy within 18%. The coupling efficiency from the heating laser to the core is inferred to be $(10 \pm 2)$ % in total: $(8 \pm 1.6)$ % for the ionized bulk electrons and $(2 \pm 0.4)$ % for the bulk ions. The fusion neutron spectrum detected on the laser axis exhibits peaks at 1.0 MeV, 1.7 MeV and 3.8 MeV. These peaks are attributed to the $C(d, n){\hspace{0pt}}^{13}$ N and $d(d, n){\hspace{0pt}}^3$ He reactions induced by counterpropagating fast deuterons accelerated by the photon pressure of the heating pulses.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Flash Kα radiography of laser-driven solid sphere compression for fast ignition

Time-resolved compression of a laser-driven solid deuterated plastic sphere with a cone was measured with flash Kα x-ray radiography. A spherically converging shockwave launched by nanosecond GEKKO XII beams was used for compression while a flash of 4.51 keV Ti Kα x-ray backlighter was produced by a high-intensity, picosecond laser LFEX (Laser for Fast ignition EXperiment) near peak compression for radiography. Areal densities of the compressed core were inferred from two-dimensional backlit x-ray images recorded with a narrow-band spherical crystal imager. The maximum areal density in the experiment was estimated to be 87 ± 26 mg/cm{sup 2}. The temporal evolution of the experimental and simulated areal densities with a 2-D radiation-hydrodynamics code is in good agreement.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Experimental demonstration of laser imprint reduction using underdense foams

Reducing the detrimental effect of the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability on the target performance is a critical challenge. In this purpose, the use of targets coated with low density foams is a promising approach to reduce the laser imprint. This article presents results of ablative RT instability growth measurements, performed on the OMEGA laser facility in direct-drive for plastic foils coated with underdense foams. The laser beam smoothing is explained by the parametric instabilities developing in the foam and reducing the laser imprint on the plastic (CH) foil. The initial perturbation pre-imposed by the means of a specific phase plate was shown to be smoothed using different foam characteristics. Numerical simulations of the laser beam smoothing in the foam and of the RT growth are performed with a suite of paraxial electromagnetic and radiation hydrodynamic codes. They confirmed the foam smoothing effect in the experimental conditions.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Progress in indirect and direct-drive planar experiments on hydrodynamic instabilities at the ablation front

Understanding and mitigating hydrodynamic instabilities and the fuel mix are the key elements for achieving ignition in Inertial Confinement Fusion. Cryogenic indirect-drive implosions on the National Ignition Facility have evidenced that the ablative Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (RTI) is a driver of the hot spot mix. This motivates the switch to a more flexible higher adiabat implosion design [O. A. Hurricane et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 056313 (2014)]. The shell instability is also the main candidate for performance degradation in low-adiabat direct drive cryogenic implosions [Goncharov et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 056315 (2014)]. This paper reviews recent results acquired in planar experiments performed on the OMEGA laser facility and devoted to the modeling and mitigation of hydrodynamic instabilities at the ablation front. In application to the indirect-drive scheme, we describe results obtained with a specific ablator composition such as the laminated ablator or a graded-dopant emulator. In application to the direct drive scheme, we discuss experiments devoted to the study of laser imprinted perturbations with special phase plates. The simulations of the Richtmyer-Meshkov phase reversal during the shock transit phase are challenging, and of crucial interest because this phase sets the seed of the RTI growth. Recent works were dedicated to increasing the accuracy of measurements of the phase inversion. We conclude by presenting a novel imprint mitigation mechanism based on the use of underdense foams. The foams induce laser smoothing by parametric instabilities thus reducing the laser imprint on the CH foil.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Laser scattered images observed from carbon plasma stagnation and following molecular formation

Two carbon targets were irradiated to create plasma plumes to collide at right angle with two UV laser pulses each other at 10 J/cm{sup 2}/pulse. The collision results in carbon plasma stagnation. Laser scattered imaging indicates that the carbon large molecular formation takes place much later in time after the laser irradiation and stagnation. Compared with the temporal history of electron density (n{sub e}), ion density (n{sub i}), and plasma self-emission dominated by carbon Swan band, it is estimated that the carbon large molecular formation has been initiated with the ion collision followed by the C{sub 2} formation.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2013

Extremely high-pressure generation and compression with laser implosion plasmas

We have tested a scheme for using laser implosion plasmas to generate pressures in the gigabar (100 TPa) regime. Cone-in-shell targets employed in fast ignition of inertial confinement fusion were irradiated to create a high-pressure source for compression of materials. The imploded plasmas pushed a foil embedded on the tip of a cone. The pressure was estimated from the shock velocity into the material; the shock velocity was obtained from an optical measurement. The measured shock velocity of the foil was above 100 km/s, corresponding to a pressure greater than 1 Gbar.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗