Progress update on CVD of beryllium

Capsules with beryllium ablators are very important targets for the DOE Nat ional Ignition Facility (NIF) laser in the Inertial Confinement Fusion Prog ram. Two leading candidates for fabricating beryllium capsules are the mach ining and bonding of hemispheres, and physical vapor deposition of berylliu m onto plastic or other shells. An attractive possibility would be to coat a spherical mandrel with a thin layer of beryllium by a non-line-of-sight p rocess. This coating could be applied via the chemical vapor deposition (CV D) of beryllium. Our first attempt at coating beryllium via CVD was done by using bis(cyclop entadienyl)beryllium, (C2H5)(2)Be, as the precursor material. Results obtai ned by use of (C5H5)(2)Be as the precursor material is discussed. However, difficulties we encountered with use of the (C5H5)(2)Be precursor material led us to examine a relatively unexplored area of beryllium chemis try, namely that of its amines. This redirection also led us to change surr ogate material for use in the developmental work.