The Focused Energy roadmap for Inertial Fusion Energy

Focused Energy aims to demonstrate a prototype fusion power plant based on laser-driven inertial fusion energy (IFE). The scientific basis for energy production is proton fast ignition (PFI), an advanced inertial confinement fusion (ICF) scheme that separates the process of deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel compression and heating to produce the high target gains (G>100) needed for commercial fusion. It builds upon the recent succesful demonstration of ignition (with G~1) at the National Ignition Facility via the conventional central hot-spot inertial fusion scheme.

In this talk we describe the roadmap developed at Focused Energy to address the major scientific and technical hurdles to demonstrating the viability of an IFE power plant based on proton fast ignition. Key aspects of the roadmap include a facility development path providing physics risk reduction on near-term intermediate scale facilities, demonstration of ignition and gain in single-shot mode, and rep-rated ignition in a reactor environment, as well the concurrent development of rep-rated laser, mass target manufacturing and injection, and reactor technologies.