FEASIBILITY OF ORGANO-BERYLLIUM TARGET MANDRELS USING ORGANO-GERMANIUM PECVD AS A SURROGATE

Inertial Confinement Fusion capsule designs incorporating beryllium ar e becoming attractive for use in implosion experiments designed for mo dest energy gain. This paper explores the feasibility of chemical vapo r deposition of organo-beryllium precursors to form coating materials of interest as ablators and fuel containers. Experiments were performe d in a surrogate chemical system utilizing tetramethylgermane as the o rganometallic precursor. Coatings with up to 3.4 g cm(-3) germanium ha ve been produced with germanium-to-carbon ratios of at least 1:1. Thes e coatings compare favorably with polymer-like organo-germanium films previously reported in the literature and provide confidence that a si milar deposition process with an organo-beryllium precursor would be s uccessful.