Plans and status of the Beryllium ablator campaign on NIF

Beryllium has long been known to have excellent properties for indirectly driven ICF implosions including enhanced ablation pressure, implosion velocity, and mass ablation rate. The high ablation velocity leads to stabilization of ablative hydrodynamic instabilities and higher ablation pressures. Recent ``high foot'' experiments have shown ablative Rayleigh-Taylor to be a leading cause of degraded performance for ICF implosions. While Beryllium ablators have these advantages, there are also risks associated with Beryllium target designs. A campaign is underway to design and to test these advantages for comparison with other ablator options and determine which provides the best path forward for ICF. Experiments using Beryllium ablators are expected to start in the late summer of 2014. This presentation will discuss the status of the experiments and layout the plans/goals for the campaign.