Effect of higher z dopants on implosion dynamics: X-ray spectroscopy

Abstract Low- z dopants such as argon are used to characterize the plasma properties in imploding inertial confinement fusion (ICF) capsules. Higher z dopants will be used as the temperature of the capsules is increased especially as we approach ignition on the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The presence of the higher z dopants also affects the dynamics of the implosion as it increases the electron density, which increases the radiation losses from the plasma allowing the plasma to compress to a smaller volume. In the present study, we examine the effects at higher dopant densities. While a normal glass capsule loses energy to radiation during compression, the high- z shells will confine the radiation even as equilibrium burn is approached. We have fielded thin 1-mm diameter glass shells filled with varying amounts of xenon and krypton gas to study the progression from non-equilibrium to equilibrium burn as the dopant gas concentration is increased. The shells used for these experiments also contained 3 He to measure the proton spectrum from the D 3 He reaction providing information about the target temperature and the density-radius product, ρR . Here we present results using the X-ray measurements, as well as discuss some of the issues and the progress we made.