This document summarizes the Indirect Drive Warm-Loaded Ignition Target design. These targets either use a fill tube or the capsule is strong enough to withstand the room temperature pressure of the DT fuel. Only features that affect the design of the NIF Cryogenic Target System (NCTS) are presented. The design presented is the current thinking and may evolve further. The NCTS should be designed to accommodate a range of targets and target scales, as described here. The interface location between the target and the NCTS cryostat is at the target base / gripper joint, the tamping gas gland/gland joint, and the electrical plug/receptacle joint.

Both Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore Laboratories have studied capsule and laser driven target designs for the National Ignition Facility. The current hohlraum design is a 2.76mm radius, 9.5mm long gold cylinder with 1.39mm radius laser entrance holes covered by 1[mu]m thick plastic foils. Laser beams strike the inside cylinder wall from two separate cones with a peak power less than 400 TW. The problem with a pressure pulse caused by wall plasma stagnating on axis has been overcome by filling the hohlraum with gas. Currently this is equi-molar hydrogen-helium gas at 0.83 mg/cc density. One capsule uses a 160 [mu]m plastic ablator doped with oxygen and bromine surrounding an 80 [mu]m thick DT ice layer with an inner radius of 0.87 mm. Los Alamos integrated calculations of the hohlraum and this capsule using 1.4 MJ of laser energy achieve yields of 4.9 MJ using LTE atomic physics, and 3.5 MJ with non-LTE. This confirms Livermore calculations of ignition. For radiation driven implosions, a beryllium ablator offers a viable alternative to plastic. It is strong enough to contain high DT pressures. Copper, soluble at required levels, is an excellent dopant to add opacity. A beryllium capsule with a 155 [mu]m thick ablator doped with 0.9 atom % copper, and the same inner dimensions as the plastic capsule, placed in a similar hohlraum, yields 6.9 MJ with LTE. Although these calculations show the designs are sensitive, they add to the confidence that NIF can achieve ignition. Using their best integrated calculations which are not yet fully optimized, they confirm Livermore calculations of ignition with a plastic capsule, and have added an alternate capsule design with a beryllium ablator.

In the fall of 2010, the Office of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Secretary for Science asked for a National Research Council (NRC) committee to investigate the prospects for generating power using inertial confinement fusion (ICF) concepts, acknowledging that a key test of viability for this concept-ignition -could be demonstrated at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the relatively near term. The committee was asked to provide an unclassified report. However, DOE indicated that to fully assess this topic, the committee's deliberations would have to be informed by the results of some classified experiments and information, particularly in the area of ICF targets and nonproliferation. Thus, the Panel on the Assessment of Inertial Confinement Fusion Targets ("the panel") was assembled, composed of experts able to access the needed information. The panel was charged with advising the Committee on the Prospects for Inertial Confinement Fusion Energy Systems on these issues, both by internal discussion and by this unclassified report. A Panel on Fusion Target Physics ("the panel") will serve as a technical resource to the Committee on Inertial Confinement Energy Systems ("the Committee") and will prepare a report that describes the R&D challenges to providing suitable targets, on the basis of parameters established and provided to the Panel by the Committee. The Panel on Fusion Target Physics will prepare a report that will assess the current performance of fusion targets associated with various ICF concepts in order to understand: 1. The spectrum output; 2. The illumination geometry; 3. The high-gain geometry; and 4. The robustness of the target design. The panel addressed the potential impacts of the use and development of current concepts for Inertial Fusion Energy on the proliferation of nuclear weapons information and technology, as appropriate. The Panel examined technology options, but does not provide recommendations specific to any currently operating or proposed ICF facility.

Indirect drive ignition target simulations are described as they are used to determine target fabrication specifications. Simulations are being used to explore options for making the targets more robust, and to develop more detailed understanding of the performance of a few point designs. The current array of targets is described. A new target is described with radially dependent Cu dopant in Be. This target has significantly looser specifications for high-mode perturbations than previous targets. Current estimates of size limitations for fill tubes, holes, and isolated defect are discussed. Recent 3D simulations are described.

The central goal of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is demonstration of controlled thermonuclear ignition. The mainline ignition target is a low-Z, single-shell cryogenic capsule designed to have weakly nonlinear Rayleigh-Taylor growth of surface perturbations. Double-shell targets are an alternative design concept that avoids the complexity of cryogenic preparation but has greater physics uncertainties associated with performance-degrading mix. A typical double-shell design involves a high-Z inner capsule filled with DT gas and supported within a low-Z ablator shell. The largest source of uncertainty for this target is the degree of highly evolved nonlinear mix on the inner surface of the high-Z shell. High Atwood numbers and feed-through of strong outer surface perturbation growth to the inner surface promote high levels of instability. The main challenge of the double-shell target designs is controlling the resulting nonlinear mix to levels that allow ignition to occur. Design and analysis of a suite of indirect-drive NIF double-shell targets with hohlraum temperatures of 200 eV and 250 eV are presented. Analysis of these targets includes assessment of two-dimensional radiation asymmetry as well as nonlinear mix. Two-dimensional integrated hohlraum simulations indicate that the x-ray illumination can be adjusted to provide adequate symmetry control in hohlraums specially designed to have high laser-coupling efficiency [Suter et al., Phys. Plasmas 5, 2092 (2000)]. These simulations also reveal the need to diagnose and control localized 10-15 keV x-ray emission from the high-Z hohlraum wall because of strong absorption by the high-Z inner shell. Preliminary estimates of the degree of laser backscatter from an assortment of laser-plasma interactions suggest comparatively benign hohlraum conditions. Application of a variety of nonlinear mix models and phenomenological tools, including buoyancy-drag models, multimode simulations and fall-line optimization, indicates a possibility of achieving ignition, i.e., fusion yields greater than 1 MJ. Planned experiments on the Omega laser to test current understanding of high-energy radiation flux asymmetry and mix-induced yield degradation in double-shell targets are described.

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