Plasma Density Measurements of the Inner Shell Release.

The material release on the side opposite to the laser drive of a CH shell was probed at conditions relevant to inertial confinement fusion. The release was found to expand further with a longer scale length than that predicted by radiation-hydrodynamic simulations. The simulations show that a relaxation of the back side of the shell consistent with measurements explains the experimentally observed reduction in inertial confinement fusion implosion performance-specifically, reduced areal density at peak compression.