Imperial College London
Alternate

ProfessorSimonBland

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Physics

Professor of Plasma Physics
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7650sn.bland

 
 
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Location

 

746Blackett LaboratorySouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Miller:2020:10.1063/1.5139663,
author = {Miller, SM and Slutz, SA and Bland, SN and Klein, SR and Campbell, PC and Woolstrum, JM and Kuranz, CC and Gomez, MR and Jordan, NM and McBride, RD},
doi = {10.1063/1.5139663},
journal = {Review of Scientific Instruments},
pages = {1--9},
title = {A pulsed-power implementation of “Laser Gate” for increasing laser energy coupling and fusion yield in magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF)},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.5139663},
volume = {91},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) at Sandia National Laboratories involves a laser preheating stage where a few-ns laser pulse passes through a few-micron-thick plastic window to preheat gaseous fusion fuel contained within the MagLIF target. Interactions with this window reduce heating efficiency and mix window and target materials into the fuel. A recently proposed idea called “Laser Gate” involves removing the window well before the preheating laser is applied. In this article, we present experimental proof-of-principle results for a pulsed-power implementation of Laser Gate, where a thin current-carrying wire weakens the perimeter of the window, allowing the fuel pressure to push the window open and away from the preheating laser path. For this effort, transparent targets were fabricated and a test facility capable of studying this version of Laser Gate was developed. A 12-frame bright-field laser schlieren/shadowgraphy imaging system captured the window opening dynamics on microsecond timescales. The images reveal that the window remains largely intact as it opens and detaches from the target. A column of escaping pressurized gas appears to prevent the detached window from inadvertently moving into the preheating laser path.
AU  - Miller,SM
AU  - Slutz,SA
AU  - Bland,SN
AU  - Klein,SR
AU  - Campbell,PC
AU  - Woolstrum,JM
AU  - Kuranz,CC
AU  - Gomez,MR
AU  - Jordan,NM
AU  - McBride,RD
DO  - 10.1063/1.5139663
EP  - 9
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 0034-6748
SP  - 1
TI  - A pulsed-power implementation of “Laser Gate” for increasing laser energy coupling and fusion yield in magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF)
T2  - Review of Scientific Instruments
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.5139663
UR  - https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5139663
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/80093
VL  - 91
ER  -
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