Laser-Driven Magnetic-Flux Compression in High-Energy-Density Plasmas

The demonstration of magnetic field compression to many tens of megagauss in cylindrical implosions of inertial confinement fusion targets is reported for the first time. The OMEGA laser T. R. Boehly, Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)10.1016/S0030-4018(96)00325-2 was used to implode cylindrical CH targets filled with deuterium gas and seeded with a strong external field (>50 kG) from a specially developed magnetic pulse generator. This seed field was trapped (frozen) in the shock-heated gas fill and compressed by the imploding shell at a high implosion velocity, minimizing the effect of resistive flux diffusion. The magnetic fields in the compressed core were probed via proton deflectrometry using the fusion products from an imploding D3He target. Line-averaged magnetic fields between 30 and 40 MG were observed.