Progress in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion

Abstract

Significant progress has been made in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion research at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics since the 2009 IFSA Conference [R.L. McCrory et al., J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 244, 012004 (2010)]. Areal densities of 300mg/cm2 have been measured in cryogenic target implosions with neutron yields 15% of 1-D predictions. A model of crossed-beam energy transfer has been developed to explain the observed scattered-light spectrum and laser-target coupling. Experiments show that its impact can be mitigated by changing the ratio of the laser beam to target diameter. Progress continues in the development of the polar-drive concept that will allow direct-drive-ignition experiments to be conducted on the National Ignition Facility using the indirect-drive-beam layout. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013.