Coupling of High Power Lasers to Small, Hot Targets at the National Ignition Facility

Summary form only given. An experimental campaign to study radiation drive in small-scale halfraums has been carried out using the first four beams of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawerence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, CA). The targets fill with plasma so quickly that, late in time, most of the laser energy is deposited at the laser entrance hole. Experiments have shown the effect of laser beam conditioning, laser power, and target size on hohlraum performance. The experimental results on X-radiation drive, laser backscatter, hard X-rays, hard X-ray imaging, and X-ray burnthrough are discussed