SHOT-TO-SHOT COMPARISON OF THE FIRST LI-BEAM-DRIVEN HOHLRAUM EXPERIMENTS

Shot-to-shot comparison of the first Li-beam hohlraum experiments on PBFA II provides an opportunity to measure and determine the factor that affect the on-axis reproducibility of the Li-ion beam. Both inner-shell and thermal x-ray emission are used to estimate the relative beam power on target from shot to shot. The M- and L-shell Au x-ray yield measurements were made with an array of 11 filtered p-i-n detectors, and the thermal emission measurements were made with an array of three filtered bolometers. The analysis shows that the beam intensity on target varied by more than a factor of 10 during the shot series. By correlating the results of the beam on target with other diagnostics and events, we have identified some potential causes for these variations. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.