Inertial confinement fusion. Quarterly report, July--September 1995, Volume 5, Number 4

The 1990 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) final report recommended proceeding with the construction of a 1- to 2-MJ Nd-doped glass laser designed to achieve ignition in the laboratory (a laser originally called the Nova Upgrade, but now called the National Ignition Facility, or NIF, and envisioned as a national user facility). As a prerequisite, the report recommended completion of a series of target physics objectives on the Nova laser in use at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Meeting these objectives, which were called the Nova Technical Contract (NTC), would demonstrate (the Academy committee believed) that the physics of ignition targets was understood well enough that the laser requirements could be accurately specified. Completion of the NTC objectives was given the highest priority in the NAS report. The NAS committee also recommended a concentrated effort on advanced target design for ignition. As recommended in the report, completion of these objectives has been the joint responsibility of LLNL and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Most of the articles in this issue of the ICF Quarterly were written jointly by scientists from both institutions. Several of the NTC objectives required the completion of improvements to Nova`s power balance and pointing accuracy and of new diagnostics and new target fabrication capabilities. These improvements were called {open_quotes}Precision Nova{close_quotes} and are documented. The original NTC objectives have been largely met. This Introduction summarizes those objectives and their motivation in the context of the requirements for ignition. The articles that follow describe the NIF ignition target designs and summarize the principal accomplishments in the various elements of the NTC