Study of thedouble-layerr high-density carbon-polystyrene ablator in the ignition of inertial fusion targets

Abstract

High-density carbon ablator is one of the promising candidates for thermonuclear ignition in inertial confinement fusion. A double-layer polystyrene-high dense carbon ablator has been used to reduce the hydrodynamic instabilities as well as protect the fuel from the preheating phenomenon. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the optimization of a typical double ablator spherical target with an initial polystyrene ablator layer with a thickness of 37 µm by using MULTI-IFE hydrodynamic code. This target was irradiated with symmetrical laser beams with 22.7 ns pulse duration, 0.25 µm wavelength, and 1.7 MJ total pulse energy. Our calculations show that the optimal thickness of the high-density carbon is about 5.6m. Using a diamond ablator increases the absorbed laser energy at the target surface by approximately 8%. Increasing the absorbed energy leads to an increase of about 5% in the alpha power deposition, and as a result, the fuel burn fraction increases by about 1.5%. Eventually, fuel acquire increases by approximately 12%.

Keywords

• inertial confinement fusion
• central ignition
• multi-ife hydrodynamic code
• hdc-ch ablator