Investigations of Interaction of Laser Radiation and Plasma Beams with Materials of Reactor Chamber for Inertial Confinement Fusion

The main purpose of the project was to experimentally analyze some the processes which take place during the interaction of laser radiation and plasma beams with the materials of reactor chamber for the Inertial Confinement Fusion. First, we studied the effect of target nature on the laser ablation process and on the properties of laser-generated plasma ions. As an example we considered porous targets having different densities and showed how the charge state, the energy and the intensity of the plasma ions depend on the target density. We also studied the effect of laser frequency on the properties of plasma ions generated at the surface of such porous targets. We considered possibilities of controlling the intensity and the energy of the ions by changing the frequency of the laser and the density of the target because of the change in laser ablation process. Then we investigated the changes in the properties of laser-produced plasma ions after the ablation process, during the plasma expansion, due to the mutual interaction between the ions of different mass. For this purpose we studied two- element plasma ions generated from (Sc{sub 2}O{sub 3}, Ce{sub 2}O{sub 3}, Lu{sub 2}O{sub 3}) targets. Experiments have shown that structural defects caused by the neutron irradiation, influence not only on the efficiency of the process of material evaporation and emission of plasma, but also on the ionization and recombination processes taking place at the initial stage of the plasma formation and expansion.