Annealing of polystyrene microcapsules for inertial confinement fusion experiments

An underwater-annealing technique has been developed to recover the original strength of fragile polystyrene (PS) microcapsules fabricated by an emulsion technique. PS microcapsules are heated up to 120 °C in a pressurized chamber prior to the dehydration process. This is done to recover the strength required for the pressure difference across the shell wall during fuel filling for inertial confinement fusion experiments.