Spiral wobbling beam illumination uniformity in HIF fuel target implosion

Abstract

A few % wobbling-beam illumination nonuniformity is realized in heavy ion inertial confinement fusion (HIF) throughout the heavy ion beam (HIB) driver pulse by a newly introduced spiraling beam axis motion in the first two rotations. The wobbling HIB illumination was proposed to realize a uniform implosion in HIF. However, the initial imprint of the wobbling HIBs was a serious problem and introduces a large unacceptable energy deposition nonuniformity. In the wobbling HIBs illumination, the illumination nonuniformity oscillates in time and space. The oscillating-HIB energy deposition may produce a time-dependent implosion acceleration, which reduces the Rayleigh-Taylor (R-T) growth [Laser Part. Beams 11, 757 (1993), Nuclear Inst. Methods in Phys. Res. A 606, 152 (2009), Phys. Plasmas 19, 024503 (2012)] and the implosion nonuniformity. The wobbling HIBs can be generated in HIB accelerators and the oscillating frequency may be several 100 MHz ∼ 1 GHz [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 254801 (2010)]. Three-dimensional HIBs illumination computations present that the few % wobbling HIBs illumination nonuniformity oscillates with the same wobbling HIBs frequency.