Plasma potential and opacity calculations

The knowledge of the radiative properties of hot plasmas is crucial when we study the absorption in the ablator of ICF capsules. For this purpose, we developed a new code that includes a collisional-radiative module. Atomic data, calculated by either Cowan or FAC code, is the input. In a previous work we investigated the absorption of C - Si mixtures, where the silicon is a dopant. Atomic data was obtained by Cowan’s code, and the ionization potential depression was given by the Stewart and Pyatt formula. Classical semi-empirical formulas for the cross-sections of the various processes occurring in a hot and dense plasma were modified with the help of correction factors in order to match the FAC results. In this work we present the ion charge distribution and compare the calculated transmission of a pure silicon plasma to a recent experiment. We also investigate the effect of the radiation field on the opacity.