The non-equilibrium between ions and electrons in the hot spot can relax the ignition conditions in inertial confinement fusion [Fan et al., Phys. Plasmas 23, 010703 (2016)], and obvious ion-electron non-equilibrium could be observed by our simulations of high-foot implosions when the ion-electron relaxation is enlarged by a factor of 2. On the other hand, in many shots of high-foot implosions on the National Ignition Facility, the observed X-ray enhancement factors due to ablator mixing into the hot spot are less than unity assuming electrons and ions have the same temperature [Meezan et al., Phys. Plasmas 22, 062703 (2015)], which is not self-consistent because it can lead to negative ablator mixing into the hot spot. Actually, this non-consistency implies ion-electron non-equilibrium within the hot spot. From our study, we can infer that ionelectron non-equilibrium exists in high-foot implosions and the ion temperature could be ~9% larger than the equilibrium temperature in some NIF shots.

A multi-operation laser oscillator is developed and built with multiple operation modes (OMs): injectionseeding mode, cavity-dumping mode and Q-switching mode.With the same electrical energy pumping, the multioperation laser oscillator provides different output energies and pulse durations for different OMs. In the Q-switching mode, the output coupling is optimized for different electrical energy pumping. The laser oscillator operation can be switched between different modes conveniently. The multi-operation laser sources could be operated in multiple OMs for various research and application requirements.

The propagation property of Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams passing through a diffractive ring-lens (RL) was studied, where the RL was generated by a liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC-SLM). It was found that the LG beam was transformed into a sharp ring at the focal plane first, and then a Bessel-similar beam was formed behind the focal plane but the beam size was enlarged with the increase of propagation distance. With the help of a group of lenses, the beam was further collimated into a Bessel beam. Finally, the “non-diffractive” and selfreconstruction properties of the generated Bessel beams were experimentally verified.

The octahedral spherical hohlraums have natural superiority in maintaining high radiation symmetry during the entire capsule implosion process in indirect drive inertial confinement fusion. While, in contrast to the cylindrical hohlraums, the narrow space between the laser beams and the spherical hohlraum wall is usually commented. In this Letter, we address this crucial issue and report our experimental work conducted on the SGIII-prototype laser facility which unambiguously demonstrates that a simple design of cylindrical laser entrance hole (LEH) can dramatically improve the laser propagation inside the spherical hohlraums. In addition, the laser beam deflection in the hohlraum is observed for the first time in the experiments. Our 2-dimensional simulation results also verify qualitatively the advantages of the spherical hohlraums with cylindrical LEHs. Our results imply the prospect of adopting the cylindrical LEHs in future spherical ignition hohlraum design.

Recently generation of strong magnetic (B) fields has been demonstrated in capacitor coils heated by high power laser pulses [S. Fujioka et al., Sci. Rep. 3, 1170 (2013)]. This paper will present a direct measurement of B field generated with an open-ended coil target driven by a nanosecond laser pulse using ultrafast proton radiography. The radiographs are analyzed with particle-tracing simulations. The B field at the coil center is inferred to be ~50 T at an irradiance of -5×10¹⁴ W?cm². The B field generation is attributed to the background cold electron flow pointing to the laser focal spot, where a target potential is induced due to the escape of energetic electrons.

In this letter, we reported a high-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) to image erythrocytes and blood vessels. The developed system had the ability to provide a lateral resolution of 1.0 μm at the wavelength of 532 nm with a × 10 objective. First, we used a sharp edge to measure the lateral resolution of the PAM and testified the stability with carbon fibers. Then, using this system, in vivo blood vessels and capillaries of a mouse ear, even a single erythrocyte can be clearly imaged. There was a pair of accompanying venule and arteriole, whose detailed and further complicated branches can be clearly identified. And likely red blood cells (RBCs) arrayed one by one in microvasculature was also shown. The experimental results demonstrate that the high-resolution PAM has potential clinical applications for imaging of erythrocytes and blood vessels.