Results in some directions of the target technology for research on high energy density and laser fusion at the Russian Federal Nuclear Centre–All-Russia Research Institute of Experimental Physics for the last three years are presented. The results of development of optical and X-ray methods of characterization and manufacturing techniques of targets for studying the equation-of-state at high pressures and the condensed rare gas targets for the influence of pulse-repeated laser irradiation are given.

The construction of the Terawatt Accumulator (TWAC) facility is nearly completed at the ITEP in Moscow. All the major milestones have been successfully passed with a beam of carbon ions, except for the final result (the high power beam accumulation), which is on the way. The beam of C4+ ions delivered by the laser ion source is accelerated up to the energy of 300 MeV/amu by two steps—in the linear injector I3 and in the booster synchrotron UK. The accelerated beam is extracted from the UK ring and transferred to the U10 accumulator ring. Non-Liouvillian stripping technique (C4+ ⇒ C6+) is applied for stacking of C6+ batches into the accumulator ring U10. First experiments with extracted beam of ions have started in 2002. Status of the TWAC components, current results of activities aiming at mastering the ion beam stacking technique, and outlook for the TWAC advance are presented.

The experiments to study the indirect drive targets' dynamics in a highly symmetrical X-radiation field were performed on the ISKRA-5 facility. This paper covered the results of experiments with the targets in the form of a Cu spherical hohlraum, the internal surface of which is coated with Au, with six holes for laser radiation input. In the center of the aforementioned hohlraum, a glass capsule filled with D–T gas was placed. In several experiments, the central capsule was coated with an ablator made of plastic with a different thickness. This allowed us to perform a series of experiments in which the different compression degree of D–T fuel was achieved. The analyses of experimental results revealed good agreement between the latter and the spherically symmetrical hydrodynamic calculations.

The experiments measuring the density of DT mixture compressed in indirect drive targets (X-ray targets) were conducted on the ISKRA-5 facility. The density was determined from the line broadening of H- and He-like Ar doped in DT-gas as a diagnostic substance. A series of three experiments with the X-ray targets having different shell thickness of capsule filled with DT + Ar mixture were carried out. In two of the three experiments, radiation spectra of Ar were recorded and the density of compressed gas was determined. The analysis of the experimental results for the X-ray target with a 280-μm diameter and a 7 μm wall thickness revealed that the density of the compressed gas may be estimated as ∼1 g/cm3.