Hot/Thick - The zero-coast path to increased areal-density at high velocity

Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions must reach high hotspot energies (E) and high hotspot pressures (P) and a minimum requirement on the product E*P² is required to achieve hotspot ignition. The size and scale of the facility and capsule required can be minimized using an implosion driven to high convergence to achieve high areal-density. However, previous attempts to increase convergence by lowering the adiabat have been severely limited by instabilities. We present a novel path to increasing areal-density that is instead achieved by thickening the ablator while simultaneously driving the increased capsule payload to comparable or higher velocity (>400 km/s) with a higher hohlraum radiation temperature (~315 eV). This results in a higher convergence implosion capable of being driven to peak compression (“zero-coast”). These design changes are calculated to have favorable stability in contrast to low adiabat designs because of stronger ablative stabilization and a lower inflight aspect ratio. A series of D3He gas-filled implosions were conducted and demonstrated symmetry control using cross-beam energy transfer. These implosions exhibit very high ~4.5 keV ion temperatures with evidence of increased hotspot E*P² relative to close companions from other platforms.