Shock timing on the National Ignition Facility: the first precision tuning series

Ignition implosions on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) [Lindl et al., Phys. Plasmas 11, 339 (2004)] are driven with a very carefully tailored sequence of four shock waves that must be timed to very high precision in order to keep the fuel on a low adiabat. The first series of precision tuning experiments on NIF have been performed. These experiments use optical diagnostics to directly measure the strength and timing of all four shocks inside the hohlraum-driven, cryogenic deuterium-filled capsule interior. The results of these experiments are presented demonstrating a significant decrease in the fuel adiabat over previously un-tuned implosions. The impact of the improved adiabat on fuel compression is confirmed in related deuterium-tritium (DT) layered capsule implosions by measurement of fuel areal density (rR), which show the highest fuel compression (rR {approx} 1.0 g/cm{sup 2}) measured to date.