H. Sakagami

Optimization of cone target geometry for fast ignition

Electron energy characteristics generated by the irradiation of ultraintense laser pulses onto solid targets are controlled by using cone targets. Two parameters characterizing the laser-cone interaction are introduced, which are cone angle and the ratio of the laser spot size to the cone tip size. By changing these parameters, the energy absorption rate, laser irradiance at the cone tip, and electron acceleration at the cone tip and side wall are controlled. The optimum cone targets for fast ignition are 30° cone angle with double-cone geometry, and a tip size comparable to the core size, with the irradiation of a laser pulse with a spot size of about four times the cone tip size. Cone targets have the possibility to enhance the maximum energy of laser-accelerated protons by using a smaller angle cone depending on the laser f-number.

Simulation and design study of cryogenic cone shell target for Fast Ignition Realization Experiment project

In the fast ignition (FI) scheme, at first, high-density fuel core plasma is assembled by implosion laser, and is then heated by petawatt laser to achieve a fusion burning condition. The formation of high-density fuel core plasma is one of the key issues for FI. A typical target for FI is a shell fitted with a reentrant gold cone to make a pass for heating laser. The ablated plasma of gold cone interferes with the implosion dynamics, which is quite different from that of the conventional central-hot-spot approach. Therefore, the dynamics of a nonspherical implosion must be controlled to assemble high density and high areal density. Numerical simulations are performed to study radiation hydrodynamics of cone-guided implosions. In the results, the effect of the cone on implosion dynamics is clarified. The cone surface is irradiated by the radiation and ablated plasma affects the imploding shell. Coating on the cone, which tamps the gold plasma, is effective to improve the implosion performance, although the...

Fast ignition integrated interconnecting code project for cone-guided targets

It was reported that the fuel core was heated up to ∼0.8 keV in the fast ignition experiments with cone-guided targets, but they could not theoretically explain heating mechanisms and achievement of such high temperature. Thus simulations should play an important role in estimating the scheme performance, and we must simulate each phenomenon with individual codes and integrate them under the fast ignition integrated interconnecting code project. In the previous integrated simulations, fast electrons generated by the laser-plasma interaction were too hot to efficiently heat the core and we got only 0.096 keV rise of temperature. Including the density gap at the contact surface between the cone tip and the imploded plasma, the period of core heating became longer and the core was heated by 0.162 keV, ∼ 69% higher increment compared with ignoring the density gap effect.

Fast ignition integrated experiments with Gekko and LFEX lasers

Based on the successful result of fast heating of a shell target with a cone for heating beam injection at Osaka University in 2002 using the PW laser (Kodama et al 2002 Nature 418 933), the FIREX-1 project was started in 2004. Its goal is to demonstrate fuel heating up to 5 keV using an upgraded heating laser beam. For this purpose, the LFEX laser, which can deliver an energy up to10 kJ in a 0.5–20 ps pulse at its full spec, has been constructed in addition to the Gekko-XII laser system at the Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University. It has been activated and became operational since 2009. Following the previous experiment with the PW laser, upgraded integrated experiments of fast ignition have been started using the LFEX laser with an energy up to 1 kJ in 2009 and 2 kJ in 2010 in a 1–5 ps 1.053 µm pulse. Experimental results including implosion of the shell target by Gekko-XII, heating of the imploded fuel core by LFEX laser injection, and increase of the neutron yield due to fast heating compared with no heating have been achieved. Results in the 2009 experiment indicated that the heating efficiency was 3–5%, much lower than the 20–30% expected from the previous 2002 data. It was attributed to the very hot electrons generated in a long scale length plasma in the cone preformed with a prepulse in the LFEX beam. The prepulse level was significantly reduced in the 2010 experiment to improve the heating efficiency. Also we have improved the plasma diagnostics significantly which enabled us to observe the plasma even in the hard x-ray harsh environment. In the 2010 experiment, we have observed neutron enhancement up to 3.5 × 107 with total heating energy of 300 J on the target, which is higher than the yield obtained in the 2009 experiment and the previous data in 2002. We found the estimated heating efficiency to be at a level of 10–20%. 5 keV heating is expected at the full output of the LFEX laser by controlling the heating efficiency.

Plasma physics and laser development for the Fast-Ignition Realization Experiment (FIREX) Project

Since the approval of the first phase of the Fast-Ignition Realization Experiment (FIREX-I), we have devoted our efforts to designing advanced targets and constructing a petawatt laser, which will be the most energetic petawatt laser in the world. Scientific and technological improvements are required to efficiently heat the core plasma. There are two methods that can be used to enhance the coupling efficiency of the heating laser to the thermal energy of the compressed core plasma: adding a low-Z foam layer to the inner surface of the cone and employing a double cone. The implosion performance can be improved in three ways: adding a low-Z plastic layer to the outer surface of the cone, using a Br-doped plastic ablator and evacuating the target centre. An advanced target for FIREX-I was introduced to suit these requirements. A new heating laser (LFEX) has been constructed that is capable of delivering an energy of 10 kJ in 10 ps with a 1 ps rise time. A fully integrated fast-ignition experiment is scheduled for 2009.

Electron surface acceleration on a solid capillary target inner wall irradiated with ultraintense laser pulses

When ultraintense laser pulses irradiate solid targets with a large incident angle, quasistatic magnetic and electric fields are induced, which confine electrons along the target surface in an electrostatic and vector potential well. In this case, electrons are resonantly accelerated along the surface by laser electric field inside the potential well. By this surface acceleration process, high energy electrons are effectively generated whose temperature well exceeds the ponderomotive energy. The optimum conditions for realizing surface acceleration and its energy scalings are given. Capillary type targets are shown to have an advantage in utilizing the surface acceleration process by increasing the interaction length.

Generation and transport of fast electrons inside cone targets irradiated by intense laser pulses

Fast electrons are effectively generated from solid targets of cone-geometry by irradiating intense laser pulses, which is applied to fast ignition scheme. For realizing optimal core heating by those electrons, understanding the characteristics of electrons emitted from cone targets is crucial. In this paper, in order to understand the generation and transport processes of hot electrons inside the cone target, two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations were carried out. It is shown that hot electrons form current layers which are guided by self-generated surface magnetic field, which results in effective energy transfer from laser pulse to hot electrons. When the hot electrons propagate through the steep density gradient at the cone tip, electrostatic field is induced via Weibel instability. As a result, hot electrons are confined inside and emitted gradually from the target, as an electron beam of long duration. Energy spectrum and temporal profile of hot electrons are also evaluated at the rear side of the target, where the profile of rear side plasma is taken from the fluid code and the result is sent to Fokker-Planck code.

Core heating properties in FIREX-I?influence of cone tip

On the basis of one-dimensional coupled PIC and Fokker?Planck simulations, the core heating properties of different cone materials for sub-ignition class experiments of the cone-guiding fast ignition have been studied. When Au is used as a material of the cone tip, the Au atoms ionize to a high charge state during the interaction with a heating pulse in a few hundreds of femtoseconds. Because of the extreme photon pressure, the pulse starts to interact directly with a solid-density cone tip after the density slope is steepened. In addition, the electrons in the return current are strongly scattered by the highly ionized Au ions. In such a situation, the energy coupling of the heating laser to the fast electrons could drop drastically. During the transport in the cone tip, the quality of the generated fast electron beam deteriorates due to the collisional and resistive drags and the scattering by the Au ions. As a result, the core heating gets saturated quickly and the energy coupling efficiency of the heating laser to the core decreases. We proposed CH as an alternative material of cone tip to reduce the collisional defects. It is found that in comparison with the Au cone tip, a twice higher rise in temperature of a compressed CD core has been achieved with the CH cone tip after 1?ps heating by a 1020?W?cm?2 intensity pulse.

Fast ignition realization experiment with high-contrast kilo-joule peta-watt LFEX laser and strong external magnetic field

A petawatt laser for fast ignition experiments (LFEX) laser system [N. Miyanaga et al., J. Phys. IV France 133, 81 (2006)], which is currently capable of delivering 2 kJ in a 1.5 ps pulse using 4 laser beams, has been constructed beside the GEKKO-XII laser facility for demonstrating efficient fast heating of a dense plasma up to the ignition temperature under the auspices of the Fast Ignition Realization EXperiment (FIREX) project [H. Azechi et al., Nucl. Fusion 49, 104024 (2009)]. In the FIREX experiment, a cone is attached to a spherical target containing a fuel to prevent a corona plasma from entering the path of the intense heating LFEX laser beams. The LFEX laser beams are focused at the tip of the cone to generate a relativistic electron beam (REB), which heats a dense fuel core generated by compression of a spherical deuterized plastic target induced by the GEKKO-XII laser beams. Recent studies indicate that the current heating efficiency is only 0.4%, and three requirements to achieve higher efficiency of the fast ignition (FI) scheme with the current GEKKO and LFEX systems have been identified: (i) reduction of the high energy tail of the REB; (ii) formation of a fuel core with high areal density using a limited number (twelve) of GEKKO-XII laser beams as well as a limited energy (4 kJ of 0.53-μm light in a 1.3 ns pulse); (iii) guiding and focusing of the REB to the fuel core. Laser–plasma interactions in a long-scale plasma generate electrons that are too energetic to efficiently heat the fuel core. Three actions were taken to meet the first requirement. First, the intensity contrast of the foot pulses to the main pulses of the LFEX was improved to >109. Second, a 5.5-mm-long cone was introduced to reduce pre-heating of the inner cone wall caused by illumination of the unconverted 1.053-μm light of implosion beam (GEKKO-XII). Third, the outside of the cone wall was coated with a 40-μm plastic layer to protect it from the pressure caused by imploding plasma. Following the above improvements, conversion of 13% of the LFEX laser energy to a low energy portion of the REB, whose slope temperature is 0.7 MeV, which is close to the ponderomotive scaling value, was achieved. To meet the second requirement, the compression of a solid spherical ball with a diameter of 200-μm to form a dense core with an areal density of ∼0.07 g/cm2 was induced by a laser-driven spherically converging shock wave. Converging shock compression is more hydrodynamically stable compared to shell implosion, while a hot spot cannot be generated with a solid ball target. Solid ball compression is preferable also for compressing an external magnetic field to collimate the REB to the fuel core, due to the relatively small magnetic Reynolds number of the shock compressed region. To meet the third requirement, we have generated a strong kilo-tesla magnetic field using a laser-driven capacitor-coil target. The strength and time history of the magnetic field were characterized with proton deflectometry and a B-dot probe. Guidance of the REB using a 0.6-kT field in a planar geometry has been demonstrated at the LULI 2000 laser facility. In a realistic FI scenario, a magnetic mirror is formed between the REB generation point and the fuel core. The effects of the strong magnetic field on not only REB transport but also plasma compression were studied using numerical simulations. According to the transport calculations, the heating efficiency can be improved from 0.4% to 4% by the GEKKO and LFEX laser system by meeting the three requirements described above. This efficiency is scalable to 10% of the heating efficiency by increasing the areal density of the fuel core.

Control of an electron beam using strong magnetic field for efficient core heating in fast ignition

For enhancing the core heating efficiency in electron-driven fast ignition, we proposed the fast electron beam guiding using externally applied longitudinal magnetic fields. Based on the PIC simulations for the FIREX- class experiments, we demonstrated the sufficient beam guiding performance in the collisional dense plasma by kT-class external magnetic fields for the case with moderate mirror ratio ( 10  ). Boring of the mirror field was found through the formation of magnetic pipe structure due to the resistive effects, which indicates a possibility of beam guiding in high mirror field for higher laser intensity and/or longer pulse duration.