Fabrication of polystyrene hollow microspheres as laser fusion targets by optimized density-matched emulsion technique and characterization

摘要

Inertial con???nement fusion, frequently referred to as ICF, inertial fusion, or laser fusion, is a means of producing energy by imploding small hollow microspheres containing thermonuclear fusion fuel. Polymer microspheres, which are used as fuel containers, can be produced by solution-based micro-encapsulation technique better known as density-matched emulsion technique. The speci???cations of these microspheres are very rigorous, and various aspects of the emulsion hydrodynamics associated with their production are important in controlling the ???nal product. This paper describes about the optimization of various parameters associated with density-matched emulsion method in order to improve the surface smoothness, wall thickness uniformity and sphericity of hollow polymer microspheres. These polymer microshells have been successfully fabricated in our lab, with 3a€“30 e???m wall thickness and 50a€“1600 e???m diameters. The sphericity and wall thickness uniformity are better than 99%. Elimination of vacuoles and high yield rate has been achieved by adopting the step-wise heating of W1/O/W2 emulsion for solvent removal.