A survey of pulse shape options for a revised plastic ablator ignition design

Recent experimental results using the “high foot” pulse shape for inertial confinement fusion ignition experiments on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) [Moses et al., Phys. Plasmas 16, 041006 (2009)] have shown encouraging progress compared to earlier “low foot” experiments. These results strongly suggest that controlling ablation front instability growth can significantly improve implosion performance even in the presence of persistent, large, low-mode distortions. Simultaneously, hydrodynamic growth radiography experiments have confirmed that ablation front instability growth is being modeled fairly well in NIF experiments. It is timely then to combine these two results and ask how current ignition pulse shapes could be modified to improve one-dimensional implosion performance while maintaining the stability properties demonstrated with the high foot. This paper presents such a survey of pulse shapes intermediate between the low and high foot extremes in search of an intermediate foot optimum. Of the design space surveyed, it is found that a higher picket version of the low foot pulse shape shows the most promise for improved compression without loss of stability.