Prospects for high-gain, high yield National Ignition Facility targets driven by 2ω (green) light

Abstract

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) [J. A. Paisner, E. M. Campbell, and W. J. Hogan, Fusion Technol. 26, 755 (1994)], operating at green (2ω) light, has the potential to drive ignition targets with significantly more energy than the 1.8 MJ it will produce with its baseline, blue (3ω) operations. This results in a greatly increased “target design space,” providing a number of exciting opportunities for fusion research. These include the prospect of ignition experiments with capsules absorbing energies in the vicinity of 1 MJ. This significant increase in capsule absorbed energy over the original designs at ∼150 kJ could allow high-gain, high yield experiments on NIF. This paper reports the progress made exploring 2ω for NIF ignition, including potential 2ω laser performance, 2ω ignition target designs, and 2ω laser plasma interaction studies.