The high-foot implosion campaign on the National Ignition Facilitya)

The “High-Foot” platform manipulates the laser pulse-shape coming from the National Ignition Facility laser to create an indirect drive 3-shock implosion that is significantly more robust against instability growth involving the ablator and also modestly reduces implosion convergence ratio. This strategy gives up on theoretical high-gain in an inertial confinement fusion implosion in order to obtain better control of the implosion and bring experimental performance in-line with calculated performance, yet keeps the absolute capsule performance relatively high. In this paper, we will cover the various experimental and theoretical motivations for the high-foot drive as well as cover the experimental results that have come out of the high-foot experimental campaign. At the time of this writing, the high-foot implosion has demonstrated record total deuterium-tritium yields (9.3×1015) with low levels of inferred mix, excellent agreement with implosion simulations, fuel energy gains exceeding unity, and evidence for the “bootstrapping” associated with alpha-particle self-heating.

Marilyn Schneider | Jay D. Salmonson | J. D. Moody | C. J. Cerjan | Frank E. Merrill | John L. Kline | David N. Fittinghoff | Paul T. Springer | Brian Spears | Rebecca Dylla-Spears | D. A. Callahan | Jose Milovich | Omar Hurricane | Steven W. Haan | Denise E. Hinkel | A. L. Kritcher | T. Döppner | A. G. MacPhee | Joseph Ralph | D. H. Edgell | J. A. Frenje | J. P. Knauer | Klaus Widmann | Hans W. Herrmann | P. Kervin | G. P. Grim | Peter M. Celliers | H. F. Robey | Pierre Michel | R. Tommasini | G. A. Kyrala | Daniel Casey | Bruce Remington | J. R. Rygg | L. F. Berzak Hopkins | B. J. Kozioziemski | T. R. Dittrich | P. K. Patel | Laura Robin Benedetti | J. A. Caggiano | Melissa Edwards | Charles B. Yeamans | Robert Hatarik | H.-S. Park | Nobuhiko Izumi | P. Michel | J. Moody | E. Dewald | A. MacPhee | R. Tommasini | D. Callahan | M. Edwards | D. Hinkel | J. Milovich | K. Widmann | J. Kline | G. Kyrala | J. Knauer | J. Frenje | B. Remington | C. Cerjan | B. Spears | O. Hurricane | T. Dittrich | S. Haan | D. Fittinghoff | H. Park | N. Izumi | P. Patel | H. Robey | D. Casey | D. Edgell | P. Celliers | P. Springer | J. Salmonson | J. Ralph | G. Grim | J. Caggiano | T. Döppner | R. Dylla‐Spears | M. G. Johnson | N. Guler | A. Kritcher | S. L. Pape | T. Ma | F. Merrill | A. Pak | L. Benedetti | B. Kozioziemski | S. Maclaren | H. Herrmann | Eduard Dewald | S. F. Khan | N. Guler | M. Gatu Johnson | Arthur Pak | R. Hatarik | C. Yeamans | L. B. Hopkins | Tammy Ma | J. S. Ross | S. Le Pape | M. A. Barrios Garcia | S. A. Maclaren | P. Kervin | M. A. Garcia | M. Schneider | S. Khan

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