American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 21(108), 2012
DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.108.215005
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The National Ignition Facility has been used to compress deuterium-tritium to an average areal density of ~1.0plusmn0.1 g cm -2, which is 67% of the ignition requirement. These conditions were obtained using 192 laser beams with total energy of 1-1.6 MJ and peak power up to 420 TW to create a hohlraum drive with a shaped power profile, peaking at a soft x-ray radiation temperature of 275-300 eV. This pulse delivered a series of shocks that compressed a capsule containing cryogenic deuterium-tritium to a radius of 25-35 mum. Neutron images of the implosion were used to estimate a fuel density of 500-800 g cm -3.