Hot/Thick – A high radiation temperature path to higher compression

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). We have conducted a series of experiments to develop a platform that satisfies these conditions. The first results include a backlit radiography experiment which shows increased compression compared to companion shots at the same scale. The results of these experiments as well as scalings to higher energy will be presented.