Neutron penumbral imaging of laser-fusion targets

Abstract

A camera has been developed that directly measures the deuterium-tritium burn region of laser-driven inertial confinement fusion targets. Images are formed by 14-MeV thermonuclear neutrons emitted from the targets. Our demonstration instrument is based on a coded-aperture imaging technique known as penumbral imaging, and has produced images of high-yield (> 10 12 neutrons) direct-drive targets with resolutions of 80 μm. The camera consists of four major components: the penumbral aperture, alignment hardware, detector system, and image analysis software.