Increased preheat energy to MagLIF targets with cryogenic cooling

The performance of Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) experiments is sensitive to the amount of laser energy coupled to the fuel during the preheat stage. 1 A significant source of energy loss in this process comes from the need to heat a laser entrance hole foil (LEH) located at the entrance to the target that is required to contain the gaseous fusion fuel. The energy lost to the LEH is a function of its thickness which can be reduced by cryogenically cooling the fuel, lowering the pressure required for a given fuel density. 2 To realize this, a cryogenically-cooled laser target platform was commissioned in the Pecos chamber that enables rapid testing of preheat configurations, 3 and a cryogenically-cooled MagLIF configuration was tested that symmetrically cools the liner from the top and bottom, minimizing temperature gradients across the target. These new capabilities were utilized to perform a cryogenically-cooled MagLIF experiment that demonstrated >2 kJ of preheat energy coupled to the fuel for the first time on Z.