Teller Medal Lecture IFSA2001: Problems and Solutions in the Design and Analysis of Early Laser Driven High Energy Density and ICF Target Physics Experiments.
The high energy density (HED) and inertial confinement fusion (ICF) physics community relies on increasingly sophisticated high power laser driven experiments to advance the field. We review early work in the design and analysis of such experiments, and discuss the problems encountered. By finding solutions to those problems we put the field on firmer ground, allowing the community to develop it to the exciting stage it is in today. Specific examples include: drive and preheat in complex hohlraum geometries with the complicating effects of sample motion; and issues in the successful design of laboratory soft x-ray lasers and in the invention of methods to reduce the required optical laser driver energy by several orders of magnitude.