An x-ray penumbral imager for measurements of electron–temperature profiles in inertial confinement fusion implosions at OMEGA

Abstract

Hot-spot shape and electron temperature (T_e) are key performance metrics used to assess the efficiency of converting shell kinetic energy into hot-spot thermal energy in inertial confinement fusion implosions. X-ray penumbral imaging offers a means to diagnose hot-spot shape and T_e, where the latter can be used as a surrogate measure of the ion temperature (T_i) in sufficiently equilibrated hot spots. We have implemented a new x-ray penumbral imager on OMEGA. We demonstrate minimal line-of-sight variations in the inferred T_e for a set of implosions. Furthermore, we demonstrate spatially resolved T_e measurements with an average uncertainty of 10% with 6 μm spatial resolution.