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A new high energy proton radiography facility PRIOR-II (Proton Microscope for FAIR) has been designed, constructed, and successfully commissioned at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (Darmstadt, Germany) pushing the technical boundaries of charged particle radiography with normal conducting magnets to the limits. The setup is foreseen to become a new and powerful user facility for carrying out fundamental science experiments in the fields of plasma and shock wave physics, material science, and medical physics. It will help address several unsolved scientific challenges, which require high-speed and precise non-invasive diagnostic methods capable of probing matter with up to 100 g/cm2 areal density. PRIOR-II is specifically designed to utilize the full timing capabilities of the SIS-18 synchrotron at GSI for ultra-fast dynamic experiments with up to 4 GeV protons and will also be fielded at the future FAIR facility, where higher proton energies and beam intensities will be available. This will enable experiment geometries with even higher areal densities, more flexible experiment timing, and further enhanced spatial resolution., (© 2024 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).)

The performance of modern laser-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments is degraded by contamination of the deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel with high-Z material during compression. Simulations suggest that this mix can be described by the ion temperature distribution of the implosion, given that such contaminants deviate in temperature from the surrounding DT plasma. However, existing neutron time-of-flight (nTOF) diagnostics only measure the spatially integrated ion temperature. This paper describes the techniques and forward modeling used to develop a novel diagnostic imaging system to measure the spatially resolved ion temperature of an ICF implosion for the first time. The technique combines methods in neutron imaging and nTOF diagnostics to measure the ion temperature along one spatial dimension at yields currently achievable on the OMEGA laser. A detailed forward model of the source and imaging system was developed to guide instrument design. The model leverages neutron imaging reconstruction algorithms, radiation hydrodynamics and Monte Carlo simulations, optical ray tracing, and more. The results of the forward model agree with the data collected on OMEGA using the completed diagnostic. The analysis of the experimental data is still ongoing and will be discussed in a separate publication., (© 2023 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.)

Relativistic, magnetically focused proton radiography was invented at Los Alamos National Laboratory using the 800 MeV LANSCE beam and is inherently well-suited to imaging dense objects, at areal densities >20 g cm -2 . However, if the unscattered portion of the transmitted beam is removed at the Fourier plane through inverse-collimation, this system becomes highly sensitive to very thin media, of areal densities <100 mg cm -2 . Here, this inverse-collimation scheme is described in detail and demonstrated by imaging Xe gas with a shockwave generated by an aluminum plate compressing the gas at Mach 8.8. With a 5-mrad inverse collimator, an areal density change of just 49 mg cm -2 across the shock front is discernible with a contrast-to-noise ratio of 3. Geant4 modeling of idealized and realistic proton transports can guide the design of inverse-collimators optimized for specific experimental conditions and show that this technique performs better for thin targets with reduced incident proton beam emittance. This work increases the range of areal densities to which the system is sensitive to span from ∼25 mg cm -2 to 100 g cm -2 , exceeding three orders of magnitude. This enables the simultaneous imaging of a dense system as well as thin jets and ejecta material that are otherwise difficult to characterize with high-energy proton radiography.

The Neutron Imaging System at the National Ignition Facility is used to observe the primary ∼14 MeV neutrons from the hotspot and down-scattered neutrons (6-12 MeV) from the assembled shell. Due to the strong spatial dependence of the primary neutron fluence through the dense shell, the down-scattered image is convolved with the primary-neutron fluence much like a backlighter profile. Using a characteristic scattering angle assumption, we estimate the primary neutron fluence and compensate the down-scattered image, which reveals information about asymmetry that is otherwise difficult to extract without invoking complicated models.

X-ray and neutrons are commonly used to image inertial confinement fusion implosions, providing key diagnostic information on the fuel assembly of burning deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel. The x-ray and neutron data provided are complementary as the production of neutrons and x-rays occurs from different physical processes, but typically these two images are collected from different views with no opportunity for co-registration of the two images. Neutrons are produced where the DT fusion fuel is burning; X-rays are produced in regions corresponding to high temperatures. Processes such as mix of ablator material into the hotspot can result in increased x-ray production and decreased neutron production but can only be confidently observed if the two images are collected along the same line of sight and co-registered. To allow direct comparison of x-ray and neutron data, a combined neutron x-ray imaging system has been tested at Omega and installed at the National Ignition Facility to collect an x-ray image along the currently installed neutron imaging line of sight. This system is described, and initial results are presented along with prospects for definitive coregistration of the images.

The neutron imaging diagnostic at the National Ignition Facility has been operating since 2011 generating neutron images of deuterium-tritium (DT) implosions at peak compression. The current design features a scintillating fiber array, which allows for high imaging resolution to discern small-scale structure within the implosion. In recent years, it has become clear that additional neutron imaging systems need to be constructed in order to provide 3D reconstructions of the DT source and these additional views need to be on a shorter line of sight. As a result, there has been increased effort to identify new image collection techniques that improve upon imaging resolution for these next generation neutron imaging systems, such as monolithic deuterated scintillators. This work details measurements performed at the Weapons Neutron Research Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory that compares the radiographic abilities of the fiber scintillator with a monolithic scintillator, which may be featured in a future short line of sight neutron imaging systems.

The installation of a neutron imaging diagnostic with a polar view at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) required design of a new aperture, an extended pinhole array (PHA). This PHA is different from the pinhole array for the existing equatorial system due to significant changes in the alignment and recording systems. The complex set of component requirements, as well as significant space constraints in its intended location, makes the design of this aperture challenging. In addition, lessons learned from development of prior apertures mandate careful aperture metrology prior to first use. This paper discusses the PHA requirements, constraints, and the final design. The PHA design is complex due to size constraints, machining precision, assembly tolerances, and design requirements. When fully assembled, the aperture is a 15 mm × 15 mm × 200 mm tungsten and gold assembly. The PHA body is made from 2 layers of tungsten and 11 layers of gold. The gold layers include 4 layers containing penumbral openings, 4 layers containing pinholes and 3 spacer layers. In total, there are 64 individual, triangular pinholes with a field of view (FOV) of 200 μm and 6 penumbral apertures. Each pinhole is pointed to a slightly different location in the target plane, making the effective FOV of this PHA a 700 μm square in the target plane. The large FOV of the PHA reduces the alignment requirements both for the PHA and the target, allowing for alignment with a laser tracking system at NIF.

The Neutron Imaging System has proven to be an important diagnostic in studying DT implosion characteristics at the National Ignition Facility. The current system depends on a polystyrene scintillating fiber array, which detects fusion neutrons born in the DT hotspot as well as neutrons that have scattered to lower energies in the surrounding cold fuel. Increasing neutron yields at NIF, as well as a desire to resolve three-dimensional information about the fuel assembly, have provided the impetus to build and install two additional next-generation neutron imaging systems. We are currently investigating a novel neutron imaging system that will utilize a deuterated polystyrene (CD) fiber array instead of standard hydrogen-based polystyrene (CH). Studies of deuterated xylene or deuterated benzene liquid scintillator show an improvement in imaging resolution by a factor of two [L. Disdier et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 75, 2134 (2004)], but also a reduction in light output [V. Bildstein et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 729, 188 (2013); M. I. Ojaruega, Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 2009; M. T. Febbraro, Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 2014] as compared to standard plastic. Tests of the relative light output of deuterated polystyrene and standard polystyrene were completed using 14 MeV fusion neutrons generated through implosions of deuterium-tritium filled capsules at the OMEGA laser facility. In addition, we collected data of the relative response of these two scintillators to a wide energy range of neutrons (1-800 MeV) at the Weapons Neutrons Research Facility. Results of these measurements are presented.

Recently, a new high energy proton microscopy facility PRIOR (Proton Microscope for FAIR Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research) has been designed, constructed, and successfully commissioned at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (Darmstadt, Germany). As a result of the experiments with 3.5-4.5 GeV proton beams delivered by the heavy ion synchrotron SIS-18 of GSI, 30 μm spatial and 10 ns temporal resolutions of the proton microscope have been demonstrated. A new pulsed power setup for studying properties of matter under extremes has been developed for the dynamic commissioning of the PRIOR facility. This paper describes the PRIOR setup as well as the results of the first static and dynamic proton radiography experiments performed at GSI.

Flash radiography with 800 MeV kinetic energy protons at Los Alamos National Laboratory is an important experimental tool for investigations of dynamic material behavior driven by high explosives or pulsed power. The extraction of quantitative information about density fields in a dynamic experiment from proton generated images requires a high fidelity model of the proton imaging process. It is shown that accurate calculations of the transmission through the magnetic lens system require terms beyond second order for protons far from the tune energy. The approach used integrates the correlated multiple Coulomb scattering distribution simultaneously over the collimator and the image plane. Comparison with a series of static calibration images demonstrates the model's accurate reproduction of both the transmission and blur over a wide range of tune energies in an inverse identity lens that consists of four quadrupole electromagnets.

The Neutron Imaging System (NIS) is an important diagnostic for understanding implosions of deuterium-tritium capsules at the National Ignition Facility. While the detectors for the existing system must be positioned 28 m from the source to produce sufficient imaging magnification and resolution, recent testing of a new short line of sight neutron imaging system has shown sufficient resolution to allow reconstruction of the source image with quality similar to that of the existing NIS on a 11.6 m line of sight. The new system used the existing pinhole aperture array and a stack of detectors composed of 2 mm thick high-density polyethylene converter material followed by an image plate. In these detectors, neutrons enter the converter material and interact with protons, which recoil and deposit energy within the thin active layer of the image plate through ionization losses. The described system produces time-integrated images for all neutron energies passing through the pinhole. We present details of the measurement scheme for this novel technique to produce energy-integrated neutron images as well as source reconstruction results from recent experiments at NIF.

Neutron and x-ray imaging provide critical information about the geometry and hydrodynamics of inertial confinement fusion implosions. However, existing diagnostics at Omega and the National Ignition Facility (NIF) cannot produce images in both neutrons and x-rays along the same line of sight. This leads to difficulty comparing these images, which capture different parts of the plasma geometry, for the asymmetric implosions seen in present experiments. Further, even when opposing port neutron and x-ray images are available, they use different detectors and cannot provide positive information about the relative positions of the neutron and x-ray sources. A technique has been demonstrated on implosions at Omega that can capture x-ray images along the same line of sight as the neutron images. The technique is described, and data from a set of experiments are presented, along with a discussion of techniques for coregistration of the various images. It is concluded that the technique is viable and could provide valuable information if implemented on NIF in the near future.

The neutron imaging system at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is an important diagnostic tool for measuring the two-dimensional size and shape of the neutrons produced in the burning deuterium-tritium plasma during the stagnation stage of inertial confinement fusion implosions. Since the neutron source is small (∼100 μm) and neutrons are deeply penetrating (>3 cm) in all materials, the apertures used to achieve the desired 10-μm resolution are 20-cm long, triangular tapers machined in gold foils. These gold foils are stacked to form an array of 20 apertures for pinhole imaging and three apertures for penumbral imaging. These apertures must be precisely aligned to accurately place the field of view of each aperture at the design location, or the location of the field of view for each aperture must be measured. In this paper we present a new technique that has been developed for the measurement and characterization of the precise location of each aperture in the array. We present the detailed algorithms used for this characterization and the results of reconstructed sources from inertial confinement fusion implosion experiments at NIF.

Neutron and x-ray images are collected at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to measure the size and shape of inertial confinement fusion implosions. The x-ray images provide a measure of the size and shape of the hot region of the deuterium-tritium fuel while the neutron images provide a measure of the size and shape of the burning plasma. Although these two types of images are collected simultaneously, they are not collected along the same line of sight (LOS). One 14 MeV neutron image is collected on the NIF equator, and two x-ray images are collected along the polar axis and nearly perpendicular to the neutron imaging line of sight on the equator. Both measurements use pinhole apertures to form the images, but existing x-ray imaging provides time-resolved measurements while the neutron images are time-integrated. Detailed comparisons of the x-ray and neutron images can provide information on the fuel assembly, but these studies have been limited because the implosions are not azimuthally symmetric and the images are collected along different LOS. We have developed a conceptual design of a time-integrated x-ray imaging system that could be added to the existing neutron imaging LOS. This new system would allow these detailed studies, providing important information on the fuel assembly of future implosions. Here we present this conceptual design and the expected performance characteristics.

The Neutron Imaging System at NIF uses an array of plastic scintillator fibers in conjunction with a time-gated imaging system to form an image of the neutron emission from the imploded capsule. By gating on neutrons that have scattered from the 14.1 MeV DT energy to lower energy ranges, an image of the dense, cold fuel around the hotspot is also obtained. An unmoderated spallation neutron beamline at the Weapons Neutron Research facility at Los Alamos was used in conjunction with a time-gated imaging system to measure the yield of a scintillating fiber array over several energy bands ranging from 1 to 15 MeV. The results and comparison to simulation are presented.

We present data that indicate nonuniform magnetization loss due to radiation damage in neodymium-iron-boron Halbach-style permanent magnet quadrupoles. The proton radiography (pRad) facility at Los Alamos uses permanent-magnet quadrupoles for magnifying lenses, and a system recently commissioned at GSI-Darmsdadt uses permanent magnets for its primary lenses. Large fluences of spallation neutrons can be produced in close proximity to these magnets when the proton beam is, intentionally or unintentionally, directed into the tungsten beam collimators; imaging experiments at LANL's pRad have shown image degradation with these magnetic lenses at proton beam doses lower than those expected to cause damage through radiation-induced reduction of the quadrupole strength alone. We have observed preferential degradation in portions of the permanent magnet quadrupole where the field intensity is highest, resulting in increased high-order multipole components.

The neutron imaging system at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is an important diagnostic tool for measuring the two-dimensional size and shape of the neutrons produced in the burning deuterium-tritium plasma during the ignition stage of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions at NIF. Since the neutron source is small (∼100 μm) and neutrons are deeply penetrating (>3 cm) in all materials, the apertures used to achieve the desired 10-μm resolution are 20-cm long, single-sided tapers in gold. These apertures, which have triangular cross sections, produce distortions in the image, and the extended nature of the pinhole results in a non-stationary or spatially varying point spread function across the pinhole field of view. In this work, we have used iterative Maximum Likelihood techniques to remove the non-stationary distortions introduced by the aperture to reconstruct the underlying neutron source distributions. We present the detailed algorithms used for these reconstructions, the stopping criteria used and reconstructed sources from data collected at NIF with a discussion of the neutron imaging performance in light of other diagnostics.

Inertial confinement fusion experiments at the National Ignition Facility are designed to understand the basic principles of creating self-sustaining fusion reactions by laser driven compression of deuterium-tritium (DT) filled cryogenic plastic capsules. The neutron imaging diagnostic provides information on the distribution of the central fusion reaction region and the surrounding DT fuel by observing neutron images in two different energy bands for primary (13-17 MeV) and down-scattered (6-12 MeV) neutrons. From this, the final shape and size of the compressed capsule can be estimated and the symmetry of the compression can be inferred. These experiments provide small sources with high yield neutron flux. An aperture design that includes an array of pinholes and penumbral apertures has provided the opportunity to image the same source with two different techniques. This allows for an evaluation of these different aperture designs and reconstruction algorithms.

A neutron imaging diagnostic has recently been commissioned at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). This new system is an important diagnostic tool for inertial fusion studies at the NIF for measuring the size and shape of the burning DT plasma during the ignition stage of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) implosions. The imaging technique utilizes a pinhole neutron aperture, placed between the neutron source and a neutron detector. The detection system measures the two dimensional distribution of neutrons passing through the pinhole. This diagnostic has been designed to collect two images at two times. The long flight path for this diagnostic, 28 m, results in a chromatic separation of the neutrons, allowing the independently timed images to measure the source distribution for two neutron energies. Typically the first image measures the distribution of the 14 MeV neutrons and the second image of the 6-12 MeV neutrons. The combination of these two images has provided data on the size and shape of the burning plasma within the compressed capsule, as well as a measure of the quantity and spatial distribution of the cold fuel surrounding this core.

Recent neutron imaging of experiments at the National Ignition Facility has provided useful information about the hotspot shape and cold-fuel distribution and has also given insight into avenues for improvement. Neutron image reconstruction depends on accurate pointing information because the point-spread function of the neutron aperture is not shift invariant. Current pointing techniques are limited in their accuracy and rely upon detailed information about the as-built structure of the array, which is difficult to determine. We present a technique for extracting high-precision pointing information from both neutron and x-ray images, and a new aperture design with features to facilitate this technique, and allow future co-registration of neutron and x-ray images.

This article describes the design and performance of a magnifying magnetic-lens system designed, built, and commissioned at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for 800 MeV flash proton radiography. The technique of flash proton radiography has been developed at LANL to study material properties under dynamic loading conditions through the analysis of time sequences of proton radiographs. The requirements of this growing experimental program have resulted in the need for improvements in spatial radiographic resolution. To meet these needs, a new magnetic lens system, consisting of four permanent magnet quadrupoles, has been developed. This new lens system was designed to reduce the second order chromatic aberrations, the dominant source of image blur in 800 MeV proton radiography, as well as magnifying the image to reduce the blur contribution from the detector and camera systems. The recently commissioned lens system performed as designed, providing nearly a factor of three improvement in radiographic resolution.

Numerical modeling of the neutron imaging system for the National Ignition Facility (NIF), forward from calculated target neutron emission to a camera image, will guide both the reduction of data and the future development of the system. Located 28 m from target chamber center, the system can produce two images at different neutron energies by gating on neutron arrival time. The brighter image, using neutrons near 14 MeV, reflects the size and symmetry of the implosion "hot spot." A second image in scattered neutrons, 10-12 MeV, reflects the size and symmetry of colder, denser fuel, but with only ∼1%-7% of the neutrons. A misalignment of the pinhole assembly up to ±175 μm is covered by a set of 37 subapertures with different pointings. The model includes the variability of the pinhole point spread function across the field of view. Omega experiments provided absolute calibration, scintillator spatial broadening, and the level of residual light in the down-scattered image from the primary neutrons. Application of the model to light decay measurements of EJ399, BC422, BCF99-55, Xylene, DPAC-30, and Liquid A suggests that DPAC-30 and Liquid A would be preferred over the BCF99-55 scintillator chosen for the first NIF system, if they could be fabricated into detectors with sufficient resolution.