Formation and Characterization of Polyimide Tents for NIF-Target Capsules

Tents meeting current thickness and uniformity/roughness specifications are needed to position ICF target-capsules inside hohlraum assemblies. We have developed a vacuum-forming technique to mold less than 100nm-thick polyimide films into partially-conforming capsule-tents. Characterization of the tents has been performed by an in-house metrology system designed to measure their roughness-and thickness-distributions. This paper will review the results of our tent-forming technique and the characterization of these tents surrounding capsules in hohlraum assemblies.