Recent progress in inertial confinement fusion at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

The Shiva and Argus laser systems at Livermore have been developed to study the physics of inertial confinement fusion. Both laser system designs are predicated on the use of large aperture Nd-glass disk amplifiers and high power spatial filters. During the past year we have irradiated DT filled microshell targets with and without polymer coatings. Recently new instruments have been developed to investigate implosion dynamics and to determine the maximum fuel density achieved by these imploded fusion pellets. A series of target irradiations with thin wall microshells at 15 to 20 TW, exploding pusher designs, resulted in a maximum neutron yield of 3 x 10/sup 10/. Polymer coated microshells designed for high compression were subjected to 4 kJ for 0.2 ns and reached fuel densities of 2.0 to 3.0 gm/cm/sup 3/. Results of these and other recent experiments will be reviewed