In realizing zinc oxide (ZnO) scintillator applications, we assess the optical damage and investigate the recovery of hydrogen-ion (H-ion) and deuterium-ion (D-ion) plasma-irradiated bulk ZnO single crystals. Hydrothermal-grown bulk crystals are irradiated with H-ion and D-ion beams with 1 keV energy and ∼1020 m−2 s−1 flux. After irradiation, the single crystals exhibit decreased visible transparencies, redshifted ultraviolet (UV) emission peaks, shortened UV emission lifetimes, and suppressed visible emission bands. These changes in the optical transmittances and photoluminescence emissions are attributed to the generation of defects during irradiation and to the interaction of hydrogen with other defects and/or impurities. Although modified by ion irradiation, the optical properties of the ZnO crystals, except for the UV emission lifetimes, recover hours after without any sample treatment and only at room temperature. Compared with the H-ion-irradiated sample, the D-ion-irradiated crystal has a slower recovery which may be related to the ions' masses, energy losses, and absolute diffusivities. Our results nevertheless show that bulk ZnO single crystals exhibit resistance to and recovery from H-ion and D-ion irradiation and can therefore be used as scintillator materials for radiation detectors inside future fusion reactors.

Physical properties of tritium (T) and deuterium (D) have been of great interest as a fuel for nuclear fusion. However, several kinds of the physical properties in a cryogenic environment have not been reported. Optical properties in liquid and solid phases are indispensable for the quality control of the DT fuel. We study the dependence of the refractive index of solid DT on temperature. A dedicated cryogenic system has been developed and forms a transparent solid DT in a prism cell. Refractive index measurements based on Snell’s law were conducted. The refractive indexes of solid DT are from 1.1618 ± 0.0002 to 1.1628 ± 0.0002 in the temperature range of 19.40 K to 17.89 K.

The characteristics of oxygen-enriched liquid scintillators with very low afterglow are investigated and optimized for application to a single-hit neutron spectrometer for fast ignition experiments. It is found that 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene has better characteristics as a liquid scintillator solvent than the conventional solvent, p-xylene. In addition, a benzophenon-doped BBQ liquid scintillator is shown to demonstrate very rapid time response, and therefore has potential for further use in neutron diagnostics with fast time resolution.

Compression and heating of solid spherical target under the strong external magnetic field is studied using fast ignition integrated interconnecting simulation system (FI 3). The simulation results show that (i) a compression of a solid sphere target is stable, and it is possible to achieve a high areal density core plasma. Using GXII scale laser, it will be R=60-80 mg/cm 2. (ii) The magnetic mirror ratio is less than 4 which does not reflect most of the hot electrons for heating core, and (iii) magnetic beam guiding enhances the heating efficiency significantly. B z,ext = 1.0 kT B z,ext = 0.5 kT B z,ext = 0 kT Heating efficiency is increased