Demonstration of improved laser preheat with a cryogenically cooled magnetized liner inertial fusion platform.

We report on progress implementing and testing cryogenically cooled platforms for Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) experiments. Two cryogenically cooled experimental platforms were developed: an integrated platform fielded on the Z pulsed power generator that combines magnetization, laser preheat, and pulsed-power-driven fuel compression and a laser-only platform in a separate chamber that enables measurements of the laser preheat energy using shadowgraphy measurements. The laser-only experiments suggest that ∼89% ± 10% of the incident energy is coupled to the fuel in cooled targets across the energy range tested, significantly higher than previous warm experiments that achieved at most 67% coupling and in line with simulation predictions.

Performance Scaling in Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion Experiments.

We present experimental results from the first systematic study of performance scaling with drive parameters for a magnetoinertial fusion concept. In magnetized liner inertial fusion experiments, the burn-averaged ion temperature doubles to 3.1 keV and the primary deuterium-deuterium neutron yield increases by more than an order of magnitude to 1.

A pulsed-power implementation of "Laser Gate" for increasing laser energy coupling and fusion yield in magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF).

Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) at Sandia National Laboratories involves a laser preheating stage where a few-ns laser pulse passes through a few-micron-thick plastic window to preheat gaseous fusion fuel contained within the MagLIF target. Interactions with this window reduce heating efficiency and mix window and target materials into the fuel. A recently proposed idea called "Laser Gate" involves removing the window well before the preheating laser is applied.