Andrew J. Schmitt

Direct-Drive Laser Fusion; Status and Prospects

Techniques have been developed to improve the uniformity of the laser focal profile, to reduce the ablative Rayleigh–Taylor instability, and to suppress the various laser–plasma instabilities. There are now three direct-drive ignition target designs that utilize these techniques. An evaluation of these designs is still ongoing. Some of them may achieve the gains above 100 that are necessary for a fusion reactor. Two laser systems have been proposed that may meet all of the requirements for a fusion reactor.

Theory of induced spatial incoherence

This paper describes theoretical and experimental investigations of induced spatial incoherence (ISI), a technique for achieving the smooth and controllable target beam profiles required for direct‐drive laser fusion. In conventional ISI, a broadband laser beam (coherence time tc=1/Δν≪tpulse) is sliced into an array of mutually incoherent beamlets by echelon structures that impose successive time delay increments Δt>tc. A focusing lens then overlaps those beamlets onto the target, which is usually located at the far field. Here, we evaluate the ideal target beam profiles for practical ISI focusing configurations, and examine the perturbing effects of transient interference, laser aberration, and plasma filamentation. Analytic and numerical calculations show that nonuniformities due to interference among the beamlets are smoothed by both thermal diffusion and temporal averaging. Under laser‐plasma conditions of interest to inertial confinement fusion (ICF), average ablation pressure nonuniformities ∼1% sho...

The Nike KrF laser facility: Performance and initial target experiments

Krypton‐fluoride (KrF) lasers are of interest to laser fusion because they have both the large bandwidth capability (≳THz) desired for rapid beam smoothing and the short laser wavelength (1/4 μm) needed for good laser–target coupling. Nike is a recently completed 56‐beam KrF laser and target facility at the Naval Research Laboratory. Because of its bandwidth of 1 THz FWHM (full width at half‐maximum), Nike produces more uniform focal distributions than any other high‐energy ultraviolet laser. Nike was designed to study the hydrodynamic instability of ablatively accelerated planar targets. First results show that Nike has spatially uniform ablation pressures (Δp/p<2%). Targets have been accelerated for distances sufficient to study hydrodynamic instability while maintaining good planarity. In this review we present the performance of the Nike laser in producing uniform illumination, and its performance in correspondingly uniform acceleration of targets.

High-gain direct-drive target design for laser fusion

A new laser fusion target concept is presented with a predicted energy gain of 127 using a 1.3 MJ KrF laser. This energy gain is sufficiently high for an economically attractive fusion reactor. X rays from high- and low-Z materials are used in combination with a low-opacity ablator to spatially tune the isentrope, thereby providing both high fuel compression and a reduction of the ablative Rayleigh–Taylor instability.

Direct-drive inertial confinement fusion: A review

The direct-drive, laser-based approach to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is reviewed from its inception following the demonstration of the first laser to its implementation on the present generation of high-power lasers. The review focuses on the evolution of scientific understanding gained from target-physics experiments in many areas, identifying problems that were demonstrated and the solutions implemented. The review starts with the basic understanding of laser–plasma interactions that was obtained before the declassification of laser-induced compression in the early 1970s and continues with the compression experiments using infrared lasers in the late 1970s that produced thermonuclear neutrons. The problem of suprathermal electrons and the target preheat that they caused, associated with the infrared laser wavelength, led to lasers being built after 1980 to operate at shorter wavelengths, especially 0.35 μm—the third harmonic of the Nd:glass laser—and 0.248 μm (the KrF gas laser). The main physics areas relevant to direct drive are reviewed. The primary absorption mechanism at short wavelengths is classical inverse bremsstrahlung. Nonuniformities imprinted on the target by laser irradiation have been addressed by the development of a number of beam-smoothing techniques and imprint-mitigation strategies. The effects of hydrodynamic instabilities are mitigated by a combination of imprint reduction and target designs that minimize the instability growth rates. Several coronal plasma physics processes are reviewed. The two-plasmon–decay instability, stimulated Brillouin scattering (together with cross-beam energy transfer), and (possibly) stimulated Raman scattering are identified as potential concerns, placing constraints on the laser intensities used in target designs, while other processes (self-focusing and filamentation, the parametric decay instability, and magnetic fields), once considered important, are now of lesser concern for mainline direct-drive target concepts. Filamentation is largely suppressed by beam smoothing. Thermal transport modeling, important to the interpretation of experiments and to target design, has been found to be nonlocal in nature. Advances in shock timing and equation-of-state measurements relevant to direct-drive ICF are reported. Room-temperature implosions have provided an increased understanding of the importance of stability and uniformity. The evolution of cryogenic implosion capabilities, leading to an extensive series carried out on the 60-beam OMEGA laser [Boehly et al., Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)], is reviewed together with major advances in cryogenic target formation. A polar-drive concept has been developed that will enable direct-drive–ignition experiments to be performed on the National Ignition Facility [Haynam et al., Appl. Opt. 46(16), 3276 (2007)]. The advantages offered by the alternative approaches of fast ignition and shock ignition and the issues associated with these concepts are described. The lessons learned from target-physics and implosion experiments are taken into account in ignition and high-gain target designs for laser wavelengths of 1/3 μm and 1/4 μm. Substantial advances in direct-drive inertial fusion reactor concepts are reviewed. Overall, the progress in scientific understanding over the past five decades has been enormous, to the point that inertial fusion energy using direct drive shows significant promise as a future environmentally attractive energy source.

The effects of optical smoothing techniques on filamentation in laser plasmas

The effect of the induced spatial incoherence (ISI) and the random phase screen (RPS) optical smoothing techniques on the filamentation instability in laser plasmas has been investigated numerically and analytically. A two‐dimensional time‐dependent laser–plasma propagation code, including both ponderomotive and thermal‐conduction dominated filamentation, is used to simulate the laser–plasma interaction. The results of these simulations are compared to the predictions of a simple theory that describes the filamentation of both coherent light and spatially and temporally incoherent light. It is shown that filaments driven by the thermal mechanism tend to cluster together and produce greater large scale nonuniformities in the laser illumination than the ponderomotively driven filaments. The RPS optical smoothing technique is found to reduce filamentation only if fast focusing optics (f/♯≲5) are used. The ISI smoothing method suppresses filamentation for fast or slow focusing optics, and requires only modera...

Evidence in the second‐harmonic emission for self‐focusing of a laser pulse in a plasma

Short‐pulse (300 psec), high‐intensity (1014−1015 W/cm2) Nd‐laser light was propagated into variable scale length plasmas (Ln≡n/∇n=200–400 μm at 0.1 critical density) preformed by long‐pulse (4 nsec), low‐intensity (≂6×1012 W/cm2) irradiation of planar targets. For high short‐pulse intensities (≥5×1014 W/cm2), time‐integrated images show filament‐shaped regions of second‐harmonic (2ω0) emission from the low density (0.01≤ne/nc≤0.2) region of the ablation plasma. Two‐dimensional computer calculations of the hyrodynamics and laser beam propagation indicate that these filaments are consistent with ponderomotive self‐focusing of the short pulse. A theoretical model that explains the 2ω0 generation mechanism within low‐density filaments is also presented.

Time-dependent filamentation and stimulated Brillouin forward scattering in inertial confinement fusion plasmas

Numerical simulations of the temporal evolution of laser light filamentation and stimulated Brillouin forward scattering (SBFS) in plasmas, under conditions that are relevant to laser fusion, are presented and analyzed. Long term unsteady behavior of filaments is observed to be the norm. Temporal and spatial incoherence due to filamentation and SBFS are impressed upon time-independent incident laser beams. The bandwidth and angular divergence imposed upon the beam increase with the strength of the interaction. In addition, the spectrum of the transmitted light is redshifted by an amount that increases with the interaction strength. Spectral analysis of the transmitted light reveals that SBFS plays a role in the generation of the observed temporal incoherence. Incident beams with some spatial incoherence but no temporal smoothing are compared to those with ab initio temporal beam smoothing (TBS). Under typical conditions, TBS beams will undergo far less angular and spectral spreading and far less SBFS than...

Observation of Rayleigh-Taylor Growth to Short Wavelengths on Nike

The uniform and smooth focal profile of the Nike KrF laser [S. Obenschain et al., Phys. Plasmas 3, 2098 (1996)] was used to ablatively accelerate 40 μm thick polystyrene planar targets with pulse shaping to minimize shock heating of the compressed material. The foils had imposed small-amplitude sinusoidal wave perturbations of 60, 30, 20, and 12.5 μm wavelength. The shortest wavelength is near the ablative stabilization cutoff for Rayleigh–Taylor growth. Modification of the saturated wave structure due to random laser imprint was observed. Excellent agreement was found between the two-dimensional simulations and experimental data for most cases where the laser imprint was not dominant.

Computational modeling of direct-drive fusion pellets and KrF-driven foil experiments

FAST is a radiation transport hydrodynamics code that simulates laser matter interactions of relevance to direct-drive laser fusion target design. FAST solves the Euler equations of compressible flow using the Flux-Corrected Transport finite volume method. The advection algorithm provides accurate computation of flows from nearly incompressible vortical flows to those that are highly compressible and dominated by strong pressure and density gradients. In this paper we describe the numerical techniques and physics packages. FAST has also been benchmarked with Nike laser facility experiments in which linearly perturbed, low adiabat planar plastic targets are ablatively accelerated to velocities approaching 107 cm/s. Over a range of perturbation wavelengths, the code results agree with the measured Rayleigh–Taylor growth from the linear through the deeply nonlinear regimes. FAST has been applied to the two-dimensional spherical simulation design to provide surface finish and laser bandwidth tolerances for a ...