Demonstration of the Highest Deuterium-Tritium Areal Density Using Multiple-Picket Cryogenic Designs on OMEGA

The performance of triple-picket deuterium-tritium cryogenic target designs on the OMEGA Laser System [T. R. Boehly et al., Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)] is reported. These designs facilitate control of shock heating in low-adiabat inertial confinement fusion targets. Areal densities up to 300 mg/cm² (the highest ever measured in cryogenic deuterium-tritium implosions) are inferred in the experiments with an implosion velocity ~3×10⁷ cm/s driven at peak laser intensities of 8×10¹⁴ W/cm². Extension of these designs to ignition on the National Ignition Facility [J. A. Paisner et al., Laser Focus World 30, 75 (1994)] is presented.