An Experiment to Simulate Trapping and Detection of Radioactive Isotopes Produced in ICF Implosions

Abstract

It may be possible to measure the low energy nuclear cross sections of light ion reactions by trapping the reaction products from an Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) implosion and detecting their beta decays. To test this idea, an “exploding wire” experiment was designed to simulate the expanding gas released in an ICF event. A copper plated tungsten foil was inserted into a vacuum chamber and activated with a deuteron beam via 65 Cu(d, p) 66 Cu. A current pulse through the tungsten then vaporized the copper to create an expanding radioactive gas, simulating the gas behavior in the ICF target chamber following the laser shot. Attempts were made to capture some gas and detect the 66 Cu beta decays using two trap designs, one using a getter and the other a turbopump. Both designs used the Short Lived Isotope Counting System (SLICS), consisting of plastic scintillator phoswich detectors and fast electronics, to identify and count the beta particles. Funded in part by a grant from the DOE through the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, and by SUNY Geneseo and Houghton College.