DEVELOPMENT OF LASER DRIVEN IMPLOSIONS OF DT FILLED SHELLS AS THERMONUCLEAR PARTICLE SOURCES

We have carried out a systematic investigation of implosions of high aspect ratio DT filled shells at the Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. This study has developed directly driven implosions as sources of thermonuclear particles to probe routinely other laser produced plasmas. Maximum particle yields of 5 x 10(9) have been achieved. Random phase plates smoothed drive beams were used to improve significantly the uniformity of the implosion, producing core thermonuclear emission regions of approximately 20 mum and a Doppler limited alpha-particle spectral width of 1-5 keV. A primary aim of this work is to apply these implosions as sources of particles in the study of Rayleigh-Taylor instability.