High Performance Glow Discharge Polymer (GDP) Based Ablators

POSTER

Abstract

Fusion ignition in a controlled laboratory environment was achieved for the first time on December 4th, 2022, unlocking the promise of unlimited energy supply. This fusion process utilizes a hollow spherical ablator capsule, potentially made of HDC (a form of nanocrystalline diamond), GDP, or beryllium. HDC is currently the material of choice in these experiments, but GDP offers some advantages that make it an attractive alternative.

GDP is a relatively mature ablator material to the ICF community, with benefits in high ablation efficiency, low adiabat potential, amorphous (therefore no inhomogeneity that arise from the grain structure), and easy to dope (for preheat control). However, it suffers drawbacks in two distinctive areas: (1) Tiny debris on the mandrel substrate or from the coating process can cause undesirable dome growth that can seed hydrodynamic instabilities during the shot (2) Dangling bonds within the ablator material can interact with oxygen and moisture to cause gradual and potentially nonuniform variations in properties (e.g. composition, density, etc). In this work, we will explore new methods to better control these two aspects of the GDP properties. Parametric studies of GDP fabrication and properties in relation to dome growth and oxygen uptake will also be presented.

** Work supported by the US DoE under the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program, General Atomics under IR&D funding, and ICF Target Fabrication contract number 89233119CNA000063Disclaimer: Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability for the accuracy, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product or process by trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views of authors expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

Presenters

  • Jackson Edward Roth

    • University of California, Los Angeles

Authors

  • Jackson Edward Roth

    • University of California, Los Angeles

  • Patrick Tomasiak

    • University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, Illinois

  • Priya Raman

    • General Atomics

  • Martin Hoppe

    • General Atomics

  • Fred Elsner

    • General Atomics

  • Nicolas Vargas

    • General Atomics

  • Pavel Lapa

    • General Atomics

  • Haibo Huang

    • General Atomics