Time-resolved areal-density measurements with proton spectroscopy in spherical implosions

Phys Rev Lett. 2003 Apr 4;90(13):135002. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.135002. Epub 2003 Apr 2.

Abstract

The temporal history of the target areal-density near peak compression of direct-drive spherical target implosions has been inferred with 14.7-MeV deuterium-helium-3 D3He proton spectroscopy of the 60-beam, 30-kJ UV OMEGA laser system. The target areal-density grows by a factor of approximately 8 during the time of neutron-production ( approximately 400 ps) before reaching 123+/-16 mg/cm(2) at peak compression in the implosion of a 950-micrometer-diam, 20-micrometer-thick plastic CH capsule filled with 4 atm of D3He fuel.