Mitigating hydrodynamic mix at the gas-ice interface with a combination of magnetic, ablative, and viscous stabilization

¹ Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory - Los Alamos, NM 87545
² Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Virginia Tech - Blacksburg, VA 24061

Received: 1 May 2014
Accepted: 22 August 2014

Abstract

Mix reduction is an important ingredient in yield performance in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). In an ignition-grade target design, shell adiabat shaping can mitigate hydrodynamic mix at the outer ablator surface via a high adiabat like that in the high-foot design, but the high Atwood number at the gas-ice interface associated with a low-adiabat ice, which is desirable for achieving high convergence ratio for a given laser system, still provides a robust drive for hydrodynamic instability during the deceleration phase of the implosion. The results presented here show that combined magnetic, viscous, and ablative stabilization can complement each other for adequate mix mitigation at the gas-ice interface in a range of magnetic-field strengths that are experimentally accessible.