Diffusion-dominated mixing in moderate convergence implosions

Phys Rev E. 2018 Jun;97(6-1):061201. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.97.061201.

Abstract

High-Z material mixed into the fuel degrades inertial fusion implosions and can prevent ignition. Mix is often assumed to be dominated by hydrodynamic instabilities, but we report Omega data, using shells with ∼150nm deuterated layers to gain unprecedented resolution, which give strong evidence that the dominant mix mechanism is diffusion for these moderate temperature (≲6 keV) and convergence (∼12) implosions. Small-scale instability-driven or turbulent mix is negligible.