Advances in compact proton spectrometers for inertial-confinement fusion and plasma nuclear science

Compact wedge-range-filter proton spectrometers cover proton energies similar to 3-20 MeV. They have been used at the OMEGA laser facility for more than a decade for measuring spectra of primary (DHe)-He-3 protons in (DHe)-He-3 implosions, secondary (DHe)-He-3 protons in DD implosions, and ablator protons in DT implosions; they are now being used also at the National Ignition Facility. The spectra are used to determine proton yields, shell areal density at shock-bang time and compression-bang time, fuel areal density, and implosion symmetry. There have been changes in fabrication and in analysis algorithms, resulting in a wider energy range, better accuracy and precision, and better robustness for survivability with indirect-drive inertial-confinement-fusion experiments. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4732065]