Luxel Corporation has broad experience in supplying customized laser targets for research applications. LUXFilm® polyimide film is used in Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments in two principal configurations.
The first configuration, called a “gasbag target”, is a unique design in which two nearly hemispherical LUXFilm® polyimide films are bonded to opposite sides of a washer that has been fitted with gas fill tubes. An enlarged gasbag is shown here. In this example, the overall dimensions of the gas volume are 2.75 mm (the inside diameter of the washer) and 2.4 mm (across the centers of the polyimide windows). With LUXFilm® polyimide less than 350nm thick, this gasbag target will hold one atmosphere of pressure.
The second configuration employs LUXFilm® polyimide windows bonded to the ends of a cylindrical target body, such as a hohlraum or a MAGLIF body. These “laser entrance windows” range from 350nm – 6000nm thick and are 1.2 mm – 3.8 mm in diameter. The windows generally hold one to 10 atmospheres of pressure.
Luxel’s laser targets are customized to meet individual researcher’s needs as required. Inquiries regarding custom configurations are welcomed.
Luxel recently cooperated with customers on additional designs which include anti-convection baffles and capsule supports inside the hohlraum configuration. Each hohlraum has four 100nm thick LUXFilm® polyimide baffles located both above and below the target capsule. The two capsule supports (or ”tents”) are also fabricated from LUXFilm® polyimide.
Laser targets manufactured by Luxel also include thin film coatings of a variety of materials configured as microdots and strips. These targets of customer-selected materials are produced by vacuum deposition through masks. Luxel’s available masks include 50µm and 100µm diameter dots and various long strips. Custom masking requirements may also be accommodated.
Co-mixed metal coatings and coatings of layered materials can also be fabricated by this method to form a spot of a precise size on a thin plastic film. Recent efforts along these lines have produced gold, aluminum, and selenium microdots, layers of niobium-silicon, and co-mixes such as gold/silicon, iron/sodium fluoride layered with carbon, silver/sodium chloride, gold/sodium chloride and niobium/sodium chloride.