ABSTRACT
The simplest target is the exploding pusher type, which is a hollow spherical shell filled with pressurized deuterium-tritium gas. The sphere is uniformly heated by a short, high-power laser pulse and explodes. The exploding shell heats and compresses the interior fuel to produce a dense, high-temperature plasma. As the laser fusion experiments progress with increasing available laser output energy, several implosion schemes have been proposed and investigated. Physical properties of plastic microspheres made of polyvinyl alcohol and polystyrene were investigated by several groups. Low-Z plastic coatings have been carried out by using plasma polymerization and vapor-phase pyrolysis. The method has been applied to metal layer coatings using magnetron sputter and ablation layer coatings using plasma polymerization and vapor phase pyrolysis. In the bounce-coating process, sticking of the targets to the pan or to each other is a serious problem. Measurements to provide feedback on the target fabrication process must be accurate, but not necessarily rapid or nondestructive.
