Sandia National Labs FY20 LDRD Annual Report

FY20 ANNUAL REPORT

Developing self-emission optical imagers in pursuit of advanced diagnostics. This project is developing a visible imaging diagnostic to observe: (1) fast phenomena such as self-emission from inertial confinement fusion targets and powerflow surfaces, and (2) slow phenomena such as post-shot debris and pre-shot target motion induced from the long-pulse coils that magnetize the Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion concept. This is a standalone diagnostic utilizing the Z Line VISAR (Velocity Interferometer System for Any Reflector) optical system, but its completion is an essential step toward more advanced diagnostics such as laser imaging. Improved measurements of the initiation and evolution of magnetically-driven targets will contribute to improved understanding, validation of, and performance of targets on the Z machine, which could be utilized in numerous security applications and high energy density physics. (PI: David Yager-Elorriaga)

(a) The optical imager diagnostic consists of an in-chamber periscope and lens that couples to the Z Line VISAR infrastructure to create and relay an image to two 1D streak cameras and eight gated cameras. Streaked data in (b) and 2D image data in (c) and (d) show the evolution of low-density plasmas in the anode-cathode gap.

Cost-competitive, scalable and safe grid storage: Sandia’s radical ion flow battery technology. To transition away from fossil fuels, there must be a grid storage technology that can mitigate the intermittency of such renewables. But such a battery must be dirt cheap, derived from Earth- abundant materials, have a 30-year service lifetime, and be massively scalable in size. To address the intermittency problem of photovoltaic solar and wind power, the team investigated the feasibility of the electrochemical half-reaction, low-cost, battery-based grid storage. The Radical Ion Flow Battery (RIFB) is uniquely suited to the most challenging grid storage application, addressing known pitfalls including: (1) use of prohibitively expensive materials, (2) lack of scalability due to limited material abundance, (3) sluggish electrochemistry at one or both electrodes, (4) unwanted side reactions leading to capacity fade and/or internal corrosion, and (5) comingling of highly

29

LABORATORY DIRECTED RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT