Low pressure gas filling of laser fusion microspheres*1

In our laser fusion microsphere production, large, thin gel-microspheres are formed before the chemicals are fused into glass. In this transient stage, the gel-microspheres are found to be highly permeable to argon and many other inert gases. When the gel transforms to glass, the argon gas, for example, is trapped within to form argon filled, fusion target quality, glass microspheres. On the average, the partial pressure of the argon fills attained in this process is around 2 × 10 ⁴ Pa at room temperature