Indirect-Drive Noncryogenic Double-Shell Ignition Targets for the National Ignition Facility: Design and Analysis (open access)

Indirect-Drive Noncryogenic Double-Shell Ignition Targets for the National Ignition Facility: Design and Analysis

The central goal of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is demonstration of controlled thermonuclear ignition. The mainline ignition target is a low-Z, single-shell cryogenic capsule designed to have weakly nonlinear Rayleigh-Taylor growth of surface perturbations. Double-shell targets are an alternative design concept that avoids the complexity of cryogenic preparation but has greater physics uncertainties associated with performance-degrading mix. A typical double-shell design involves a high-Z inner capsule filled with DT gas and supported within a low-Z ablator shell. The largest source of uncertainty for this target is the degree of highly evolved nonlinear mix on the inner surface of the high-Z shell. High Atwood numbers and feed-through of strong outer surface perturbation growth to the inner surface promote high levels of instability. The main challenge of the double-shell target designs is controlling the resulting nonlinear mix to levels that allow ignition to occur. Design and analysis of a suite of indirect-drive NIF double-shell targets with hohlraum temperatures of 200 eV and 250 eV are presented. Analysis of these targets includes assessment of two-dimensional radiation asymmetry as well as nonlinear mix. Two-dimensional integrated hohlraum simulations indicate that the x-ray illumination can be adjusted to provide adequate symmetry control in hohlraums specially …
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: Amendt, P.; Colvin, J.; Tipton, R. E.; Hinkel, D.; Edwards, M. J.; Landen, O. L. et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Nuclear Proliferation Using Laser Isotope Separation -- Verification Options (open access)

Nuclear Proliferation Using Laser Isotope Separation -- Verification Options

Two levels of nonproliferation verification exist. Signatories of the basic agreements under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) agree to open their nuclear sites to inspection by the IAEA. A more detailed and intrusive level was developed following the determination that Iraq had begun a nuclear weapons development program that was not detected by the original level of verification methods. This level, referred to as 93+2 and detailed in model protocol INFCIRC/540, allows the IAEA to do environmental monitoring of non-declared facilities that are suspected of containing proliferation activity, and possibly further inspections, as well as allowing more detailed inspections of declared sites. 56 countries have signed a Strengthened Safeguards Systems Additional Protocol as of 16 July 2001. These additional inspections can be done on the instigation of the IAEA itself, or after requests by other parties to the NPT, based on information that they have collected. Since information able to cause suspicion of proliferation could arrive at any country, it is important that countries have procedures in place that will assist them in making decisions related to these inspections. Furthermore, IAEA inspection resources are limited, and therefore care needs to be taken to make best use of these resources. Most …
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: Erickson, S A
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Overview of the National Ignition Facility Distributed Computer Control System (open access)

The Overview of the National Ignition Facility Distributed Computer Control System

The Integrated Computer Control System (ICCS) for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a layered architecture of 300 front-end processors (FEP) coordinated by supervisor subsystems including automatic beam alignment and wavefront control, laser and target diagnostics, pulse power, and shot control timed to 30 ps. FEP computers incorporate either VxWorks on PowerPC or Solaris on UltraSPARC processors that interface to over 45,000 control points attached to VME-bus or PCI-bus crates respectively. Typical devices are stepping motors, transient digitizers, calorimeters, and photodiodes. The front-end layer is divided into another segment comprised of an additional 14,000 control points for industrial controls including vacuum, argon, synthetic air, and safety interlocks implemented with Allen-Bradley programmable logic controllers (PLCs). The computer network is augmented asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) that delivers video streams from 500 sensor cameras monitoring the 192 laser beams to operator workstations. Software is based on an object-oriented framework using CORBA distribution that incorporates services for archiving, machine configuration, graphical user interface, monitoring, event logging, scripting, alert management, and access control. Software coding using a mixed language environment of Ada95 and Java is one-third complete at over 300 thousand source lines. Control system installation is currently under way for the first 8 beams, …
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: Lagin, L J; Bettenhausen, R C; Carey, R A; Estes, C M; Fisher, J M; Krammen, J E et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Influence of dopants on defect formation in GaN (open access)

Influence of dopants on defect formation in GaN

Influence of p-dopants (Mg and Be) on the structure of GaN has been studied using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Bulk GaN:Mg and GaN:Be crystals grown by a high pressure and high temperature process and GaN:Mg grown by metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition (MOCVD) have been studied. Structural dependence on growth polarity was observed in the bulk crystals. Spontaneous ordering in bulk GaN:Mg on c-plane (formation of Mg-rich planar defects with characteristics of inversion domains) was observed for growth in the N to Ga polar direction (N polarity). On the opposite site of the crystal (growth in the Ga to N polar direction) Mg-rich pyramidal defects empty inside (pinholes) were observed. Both these defects were also observed in MOCVD grown crystals. Pyramidal defects were also observed in the bulk GaN:Be crystals.
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: Liliental-Weber, Z.; Jasinski, J.; Benamara, M.; Grzegory, I.; Porowski, S.; Lampert, D. J. H. et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Summary of Synthetic Lap Polishing Experiments at LLNL, FY95 (open access)

Summary of Synthetic Lap Polishing Experiments at LLNL, FY95

The purpose of this research was to support the optics finishing development work for the NIF, the National Ignition Facility. One of the major expenses for the construction of NIF is the cost of finishing of the large aperture optics. One way to significantly reduce the cost of the project is to develop processes to reduce the amount of time necessary to polish the more than 3,000 amplifier slabs. These slabs are rectangular with an aspect ratio of more than twenty to one and are made of a very temperature sensitive glass, Nd doped phosphate laser glass. As a result of this effort, we could potentially reduce the time necessary to polish each surface of an amplifier from 20-30 hours of run time to under an hour to achieve the same removal and still maintain a flatness of between one to three waves concave figure. We also feel confident that we can polish rectangular thermally sensitive glass flat by use of temperature control of the polishing platen, pad curvature, slurry concentration with temperature control, pad rotation, and pressure; although further, larger scale experiments are necessary to gain sufficient confidence that such a procedure could be successfully fielded.
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: Nichols, M A
System: The UNT Digital Library
ESCO market and industry trends: Updated results from the NAESCO database project (open access)

ESCO market and industry trends: Updated results from the NAESCO database project

Today's U.S. energy efficiency services industry is one of the most successful examples of private sector energy efficiency services in the world, yet little empirical information is available on the actual market activity of this industry. LBNL, together with the National Association of Energy Services Companies (NAESCO), has compiled the most comprehensive dataset of the energy efficiency services industry: nearly 1,500 case studies of energy efficiency projects. Our analysis of these projects helps shed light on some of the conventional wisdom regarding industry performance and evolution. We report key statistics about typical projects and industry trends that will aid state, federal, and international policymakers, and other investors interested in the development of a private sector energy efficiency services industry.
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: Osborn, Julie G.; Goldman, Charles A. & Hopper, Nicole C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Measurement of the Polarization of the K(Beta)2 Line of Helium-like V21+ (open access)

Measurement of the Polarization of the K(Beta)2 Line of Helium-like V21+

We have measured the polarization of the intercombination line 1s3p {sup 3}P{sub 1}-1s{sup 2}{sup 1}S{sub 0}, the so called K{beta}2 line, in helium-like V{sup 21+} using two Bragg crystal spectrometers. The ions were excited in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory electron beam ion trap. We find values which are not significantly different from theoretical predictions based on some admixing of the initial state by the hyperfine interaction. In this short paper we present our results.
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: Smith, A. J.; Beiersdorfer, P.; Wong, K. L. & Reed, K. J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Meson interferometry and the quest for quark-gluon matter (open access)

Meson interferometry and the quest for quark-gluon matter

We point out what we may learn from the investigation of identical two-particle interferometry in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions if we assume a particular model scenario by the formation of a thermalized quark-gluon plasma hadronizing via a first-order phase transition to an interacting hadron gas. The bulk properties of the two-pion correlation functions are dominated by these late and soft resonance gas rescattering processes. However, we show that kaons at large transverse momenta have several advantages and a bigger sensitivity to the QCD phase transition parameters.
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: Soff, Sven
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Wavefront Control System for the National Ignition Facility (open access)

The Wavefront Control System for the National Ignition Facility

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) requires that pulses from each of the 192 laser beams be positioned on target with an accuracy of 50 {micro}m rms. Beam quality must be sufficient to focus a total of 1.8 MJ of 0.351-{micro}m light into a 600-{micro}m-diameter volume. An optimally flat beam wavefront can achieve this pointing and focusing accuracy. The control system corrects wavefront aberrations by performing closed-loop compensation during laser alignment to correct for gas density variations. Static compensation of flashlamp-induced thermal distortion is established just prior to the laser shot. The control system compensates each laser beam at 10 Hz by measuring the wavefront with a 77-lenslet Hartmann sensor and applying corrections with a 39-actuator deformable mirror. The distributed architecture utilizes SPARC AXi computers running Solaris to perform real-time image processing of sensor data and PowerPC-based computers running VxWorks to compute mirror commands. A single pair of SPARC and PowerPC processors accomplishes wavefront control for a group of eight beams. The software design uses proven adaptive optic control algorithms that are implemented in a multi-tasking environment to economically control the beam wavefronts in parallel. Prototype tests have achieved a closed-loop residual error of 0.03 waves rms. aberrations, the spot size …
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: Van Atta, L.; Perez, M.; Zacharias, R. & Rivera, W.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The inclusive jet cross section in p pbar collisions at {radical}s = 1.8 TeV using the kT algorithm (open access)

The inclusive jet cross section in p pbar collisions at {radical}s = 1.8 TeV using the kT algorithm

We present a preliminary measurement of the central inclusive jet cross section using a successive combination algorithm based on relative transverse momenta (k{perpendicular}) for jet reconstruction. We analyze a 87.3 pb{sup -1} data sample collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron p{bar p} Collider during 1994-1995. The cross section, reported as a function of transverse momentum (p{sub T} > 60 GeV) in the central region of pseudo-rapidity (|{eta}| < 0.5), is in reasonable agreement with next-to-leading order QCD predictions. This is the first jet production measurement in a hadron collider using a successive combination type of jet algorithm.
Date: October 15, 2001
Creator: al., V. M. Abazov et
System: The UNT Digital Library