Fabrication and Testing of Gas Filled Targets for Large Scale Plasma Experiments on Nova¹

An experimental campaign on the Nova laser was started in July 1993 to study one set of target conditions for the point design of the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The targets were specified to investigate the current NIF target conditions: a plasma of ∼3 keV electron temperature and an electron density of ∼1.0 x 10²¹ cm⁻³. A gas cell target design was chosen to confine a gas of ∼0.01 cm³ in volume at ∼1 atm. This paper will describe the major steps and processes necessary in the fabrication, testing, and delivery of these targets for shots on the Nova Laser at LLNL.