Metal capsules for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments are currently produced using micromachining (MM) or physical vapor deposition (PVD). These time and labor intensive methods have failed to yield capsules that meet the exacting standards for smoothness, purity, thickness uniformity and shape required by the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Electrochemical deposition (ED) has the potential of rapidly producing a full density capsule without seams or inclusion of unwanted atomic constituents, the current shortcomings of MM and PVD, respectively. There are, however, specific challenges to ED such as the contact point for applying an electric potential.

We will present our ED approaches to enable high quality metal coatings such as Pt, Au, Ag, Cu and their alloys on spherical mandrels by enabling temporary contact with a working electrode and constant, random motion of the mandrels. Our plating technology has been demonstrated to work well for metal and metal-flashed bead and shell mandrels independent of mandrel density. We will report on ED coating quality metrics including density, surface roughness, and porosity as well as thickness uniformity and sphericity.

This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.