Physics of one-dimensional capsule designs for the National Ignition Facility

This article describes a suite of 250, 280, and 350 eV copper-doped Be [Be( Cu)] capsule designs for the National Ignition Facility [Paisner , Laser Fo cus World 30, 75 (1994)] and compare these to previous Be(Cu) and bromine-d oped CH plastic [CH(Br)] capsule designs for 300 and 330 eV drives. These c apsule designs are constrained to have the same deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel mass as the 300 and 330 eV designs so that differences in yield are due to differences in capsule compression before ignition. The one-dimensional (1 -D) calculations show that the fuel rho r reaches a maximum value when abou t 20-30 mu m of ablator material is left behind, and this amount of ablator material provides the best trade-off between maximizing the fuel rho r, th e implosion velocity, and the calculated clean yield. The results of this p aper add optimized 1-D capsule designs that operate at drive temperatures o f 250, 280, and 350 eV and they complement the established 300 eV CH(Br) ab lator and the 330 eV Be(Cu) ablator designs. [S1070-664X(99)00611-4].