STATUS OF LIGHT ION INERTIAL FUSION RESEARCH AT NRL.

Abstract

High-brightness proton beams have recently been extracted from axial pinch-reflex diodes mounted on the NRL Gamble II generator. The source power brightness that was measured exceeded 10 TW/cm**2rad**2. Analysis of a modular ICF system using such diodes shows that an operational window for transport of light-ion species exists. A new barrel-shaped equatorial PRD that can be coupled to PBFA II as a single diode has also been operated on Gamble II and has demonstrated 50% ion efficiency with predominately azimuthally-symmetric charged-particle flow. In other experiments the stopping power of deuterons in hot plasmas was measured. Results show about 40% enhancement in stopping power over that in cold targets when the deuteron beam is focused on the target to about . 25 MA/cm**2.