Compressed-shell integrity measurements in spherical implosion experiments

The shell integrity near peak compression of spherical implosions using the 60-beam, 30-kJ UV OMEGA laser system [Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)] has been measured. Hot core emission backlights a shell with a thin titanium-doped layer that is imaged at x-ray photon energies above and below the titanium K edge. The x-ray intensity ratio between the two images is related to perturbations in the cold, or absorbing, part of the shell. The measured cold-shell areal-density modulations, integrated over the time of peak compression, are of the order of 25% to 50% with nonuniformity spectra peaked at spatial wavelengths of 30 to 50 μm and with the smallest detectable nonuniformity features extending down to spatial wavelengths of 12 to 15 μm. Hot-shell areal-density modulations of the emitting part of the shell (inner edge) are of the order of 13% to 20%. The measured shell modulations are in agreement with the results of two-dimensional simulations that include initial shell perturbations, imprinted shell modulations due to nonuniformities in a single laser beam, and a beam-to-beam energy imbalance in the laser drive.