Re-evaluation of the Pulsed Power Indirect Drive Approach to Inertial Confinement Fusion

Recently, the results of ICF experiments at the NIF have fostered discussions concerning a possible next generation ICF facility that could enable much higher levels of thermonuclear burn in the laboratory.  Key questions include the type of driver that should be proposed and the power and energy parameters that would be required.  In the 1990’s, LANL and SNL collaborated on a series of pulsed power experiments that demonstrated X ray driven hohlraums^1,2.  The X ray driven hohlraum experiments were motivated by an ICF concept that would use a 2-step radiation temperature to implode a high gain indirect-drive ICF capsule^3,4.  At that time, scaling studies indicated that the required driver size would be unfeasible with the existing pulsed power technology.  However, with a new generation of efficient, reduced cost pulsed power technology, it is now feasible to envision a petawatt-class pulsed power facility⁵.  Thus, it is timely to re-consider the pulsed power indirect drive approach to ICF. 

¹R. E. Olson et al., Phys. Plasmas 4, 1818 (1997).

²T. W. L. Sanford et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 5511 (1999).

³R. E. Olson et al., Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 43, 1882 (1998)

⁴R. E. Olson et al., Fusion Technology 35, 260 (1999).

⁵W. A. Stygar et al., Phys. Rev. STAB 18, 110401 (2015).