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.

A novel three-axis cylindrical hohlraum designed for inertial confinement fusion ignition.

A novel ignition hohlraum for indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion is proposed, which is named three-axis cylindrical hohlraum (TACH). TACH is a kind of 6 laser entrance holes (LEHs) hohlraum, which is orthogonally jointed of three cylindrical hohlraums. Laser beams are injected through every entrance hole with the same incident angle of 55°. A view-factor simulation result shows that the time-varying drive asymmetry of TACH is less than 1.0% in the whole drive pulse period without any supplementary technology. Coupling efficiency of TACH is close to that of 6 LEHs spherical hohlraum with corresponding size. Its plasma-filling time is close to that of typical cylindrical ignition hohlraum. Its laser plasma interaction has as low backscattering as the outer cone of the cylindrical ignition hohlraum. Therefore, TACH combines most advantages of various hohlraums and has little predictable risk, providing an important competitive candidate for ignition hohlraum.

Annulus-sector-element coded Gabor zone plate at the x-ray wavelength.

It is proposed in this paper that an x-ray Gabor zone plate can be realized by properly arranging annulus-sector-shaped nanometer structure apertures along each zone. This provides a new coding methodology which can be used to fabricate a binary zone plate with single order foci only. Numerical simulation results show good agreement with the physical design.

Quasi-sinusoidal single-order diffraction transmission grating used in x-ray spectroscopy.

A novel design of quasi-sinusoidal single-order diffraction transmission grating (QSTG) is proposed, which can achieve a line density up to thousands line/millimeter as that of traditional transmission gratings with the current level of nanofabrication technique. We fabricate a 1000 line/mm QSTG using the new design approach, and display the calibration results of such QSTG on the soft x-ray beam of synchrotron radiation.

Quantum-dot-array diffraction grating with single order diffraction property for soft x-ray region.

A gold transmission grating is used routinely to disperse the x-ray spectrum at the Z soft x-ray facility to measure the spectrum and temporal history of the absolute soft x-ray power emitted from z-pinch and hohlraum radiation sources. A quantum-dot-array diffraction grating (QDADG) of 250 lines/mm for soft x-ray is designed and fabricated for the first time according to the principle of binary sinusoidal transmission grating. The diffraction efficiencies of the grating are measured in the 150-300 eV photon energy range on the Beamline 3W1B of Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility. This article describes the basic concept and calibration techniques and presents calibration results. It is shown that the 250 lines/mm QDADG can be used to disperse light without higher-order diffractions in soft x-ray range, and the diffraction efficiencies of this grating are nearly constant (about 25%), which is beneficial in the spectrum analysis.

Phase-type quantum-dot-array diffraction grating.

A novel phase-type quantum-dot-array diffraction grating (QDADG) is reported. In contrast to an earlier amplitude-type QDADG [C. Wang et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 78, 053503 (2007)], the new phase-type QDADG would remove the zeroth order diffraction at some certain wavelength, as well as suppressing the higher-order diffractions. In this paper, the basic concept, the fabrication, the calibration techniques, and the calibration results are presented. Such a grating can be applied in the research fields of beam splitting, laser probe diagnostics, and so on.

Characterization of the diffraction properties of quantum-dot-array diffraction grating.

A new dispersive element named as quantum-dot-array diffraction grating [L. F. Cao, China patent No. 200410081499 (August 10, 2004)] for visible light has been developed and characterized experimentally. A large number of quantum dots distributed on a substrate as sinusoidal function can be used to diffract x rays without higher-order diffraction. The experimental patterns show that the higher-order diffractions which inevitably exist in the spectrum recorded using traditional diffraction gratings can be eliminated effectively by this newly designed element. It indicates that quantum-dot-array diffraction grating could be an attractive alternative of presently used diffraction grating in soft x-ray spectroscopy application to get rid of the higher-order diffraction distortions.