First Indirect Drive Experiment Using a Six-Cylinder-Port Hohlraum.

The new hohlraum experimental platform and the quasi-3D simulation model are developed to enable the study of the indirect drive experiment using the six-cylinder-port hohlraum for the first time. It is also the first implosion experiment for the six laser-entrance-hole hohlraum to effectively use all the laser beams of the laser facility that is primarily designed for the cylindrical hohlraum. The experiments performed at the 100 kJ Laser Facility produce a peak hohlraum radiation temperature of ∼222 eV for ∼80 kJ and 2 ns square laser pulse. The inferred x-ray conversion efficiency η∼87% is similar to the cylindrical hohlraum and higher than the octahedral spherical hohlraum at the same laser facility, while the low laser backscatter is similar to the outer cone of the cylindrical hohlraum. The hohlraum radiation temperature and M-band (>1.6 keV) flux can be well reproduced by the quasi-3D simulation. The variations of the yield-over-clean and the hot spot shape can also be semiquantitatively explained by the calculated major radiation asymmetry of the quasi-3D simulation. Our work demonstrates the capability for the study of the indirect drive with the six-cylinder-port hohlraum at the cylindrically configured laser facility, which is essential for numerically assessing the laser energy required by the ignition-scale six-cylinder-port hohlraum.

First Inertial Confinement Fusion Implosion Experiment in Octahedral Spherical Hohlraum.

In inertial confinement approaches to fusion, the asymmetry of target implosion is a major obstacle to achieving high gain in the laboratory. A recently proposed octahedral spherical hohlraum makes it possible to naturally create spherical target irradiation without supplementary symmetry control. Before any decision is made to pursue an ignition-scale laser system based on the octahedral hohlraum, one needs to test the concept with the existing facilities. Here, we report a proof-of-concept experiment for the novel octahedral hohlraum geometry on the cylindrically configured SGIII laser facility without a symmetry control. All polar and equatorial self-emission images of the compressed target show a near round shape of convergence ratio 15 under both square and shaped laser pulses. The observed implosion performances agree well with the ideal spherical implosion simulation. It also shows limitations with using the existing facilities and adds further weight to the need to move to a spherical port geometry for future ignition laser facilities.

[Obtaining new germplast of Brassica napus with high oleic acid content by RNA interference and marker-free transformation of Fad2 gene].

A seed-specific Fad2 gene expression cassette, which is free-marker gene and with sense and antisense structure, was constructed by using the promoter and terminator of rape seed storage protein cruciferin gene. Transgenic rape plants without selection marker genes were obtained by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The oleic acid content of transgenic plant seeds is 83.9%, which is nearly the same as that of Brassica napus with double Fad2 mutation (85%). The result of RT-PCR analysis shows that the raising of oleic acid content may be due to the degradation of Fad2 mRNA induced by co-transformation of sense-antisense Fad2 gene. These transgenic plants with high oleic acid trait grew normally and without the disadvantageous agronomic traits such as weak cold resistance, tardy development, death of buds and low rate of seed setting caused by Fad2 inactivation in mutant Brassica napus plants. This work would serve as a good base for breeding of more lines with high oleic acid content.