The Production and Characterization of Banded GDP Capsules for Defect Implosion Experiments on Omega

AbstractGeneral Atomics has supported the Los Alamos National Laboratory Defect Implosion Experiment series on OMEGA with the process design and production of banded, gas-tight, glow discharge polymer (GDP) capsules. Production of a banded target is a multistep, multidisciplinary process requiring micromachining for the band, GDP coating for the capsule wall, and aluminum sputter coating to seal the capsules for subsequent gas fill. Challenges included applying a micromachining technique to create the channel that would result in the desired band after coating, and modification of the aluminum coating process to create a permeation barrier that would cover the banded region to allow for gas filling. Information describing the fabrication steps and characterization techniques employed to analyze the banded targets will be presented.