Direct drive acceleration of planar targets with the Nike KrF laser

摘要

Nike is a multi-kilojoule KrF laser with very high beam uniformity (AI/I < 0.2% with all 36 overlapped beams), and the capability to accelerate relatively thick targets on a low adiabat under conditions scalable to direct drive ICF. In a first set of experiments we determined the effect of the imprinting by varying the uniformity of the foot of the laser pulse and measuring the growth of the subsequent Rayleigh-Taylor instability. We found that the lower the imprint, the longer the mass modulations take to reach a given level. This is in quantitative agreement with our 2-D hydrodynamics simulations. The results are promising for direct drive with a very uniform laser.