ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTS IN SUPPORT OF INERTIAL CONFINEMENT FUSION-REACTOR CONCEPTS

Cost-effective and safe containment of high-yield inertial confinement fusion (ICF) microexplosions in near-term laboratory microfusion facilities (LMF) and longer-term reactors requires an understanding of the interaction of target-generated x rays and ionic debris with surrounding buffer gases and the first solid surface that faces the target. The microfireball plasma created when a target explodes in a gas atmosphere of 1-10 Torr is not in local thermodynamic equilibrium. The plasma state must be determined by coupling the radiation field to the atomic level population calculation in order to correctly predict the surface emission of the plasma. Conditions similar to those predicted for ICF target chambers can be simulated using the SATURN x-ray simulator facility [Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Dense Z-Pinches, AIP Conf. Proc. 195 (AIP, New York, 1989), p. 3]. Aluminum and graphite samples that represent possible first wall materials were tested in SATURN. Coated aluminum samples and four-directional graphite weaves in a carbon matrix survived the tests.