Assessing the prospects for achieving double-shell ignition on the National Ignition Facility using vacuum hohlraums

The goal of demonstrating ignition on the National Ignition Facility [J. D. Lindl et al., Phys. Plasmas 11, 339 (2003)] has motivated a revisit of double-shell (DS) targets as a complementary path to the cryogenic baseline approach. Expected benefits of DS ignition targets include noncryogenic deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel preparation, minimal hohlraum-plasma-mediated laser backscatter, low threshold-ignition temperatures (≈4keV) for relaxed hohlraum x-ray flux asymmetry tolerances, and minimal (two-) shock timing requirements. On the other hand, DS ignition presents several formidable challenges, encompassing room-temperature containment of high-pressure DT (≈790atm) in the inner shell, strict concentricity requirements on the two shells (<3μm), development of nanoporous (<100nm cell size) low-density (<100mg∕cc) metallic foams for structural support of the inner shell and hydrodynamic instability mitigation, and effective control of hydrodynamic instabilities on the high-Atwood-number interface between th...

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