Quick Shot
LLE Paper Highlighted as Physical Review Letters Editors’ Suggestion
July 12, 2023
A group of researchers at LLE (W. Theobald, C. Stoeckl, R. C. Shah, D. T. Bishel, V. N. Goncharov, M. J. Bonino, E. M. Campbell, L. Ceurvorst, D. A. Chin, T. J. B. Collins, S. Fess, D. R. Harding, S. Sampat, N. R. Shaffer, A. Shvydky, E. A. Smith, W. T. Trickey, and L. J. Waxer); CELIA, France (A. Colaïtis and R. Liotard), MIT (P. J. Adrian); University of Rome, Italy (S. Atzeni, F. Barbato, and L. Savino); and General Atomics (N. Alfonso, A. Haid, and Mi Do) participated in this research and are co-authors of this important paper.
Senior scientist and lead author Igor Igumenshchev’s paper “Proof-of-Principle Experiment on the Dynamic Shell Formation for Inertial Confinement Fusion” was recently highlighted by the editors of Physical Review Letters as an Editors’ Suggestion. About one in six published Physical Review Letters papers is selected for this distinction, which is based on the paper’s exceptional subject matter, merit, and clarity of writing.
This paper has demonstrated the feasibility of an innovative target concept suitable for mass production for inertial fusion energy (IFE). In IFE, a small amount of fuel consisting of hydrogen isotopes deuterium (D) and tritium (T) is compressed and heated to temperatures greater than those found in stellar cores. When such conditions are achieved, the fuel undergoes fusion, releasing an enormous amount of energy that has the potential to drive carbon-free power plants. An IFE power plant would require nearly a million targets per day; current target technology of frozen DT in a precision shell, however, is both cost prohibitive and not suitable for mass production. A new target concept of dynamic shell formation [V. N. Goncharov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 065001 (2020).] uses a liquid DT droplet embedded into a foam shell and does not require costly cryogenic layering. This target is driven by a temporally structured laser pulse that forms a dense shell with a void at its center. This dynamically formed shell can then be imploded, releasing fusion energy as in the conventional approach. OMEGA experiments have demonstrated this shell-formation concept: starting from a homogeneous-density foam ball and using a prescribed laser pulse in time, a thin shell is created and then measured with the extensive set of diagnostics available on OMEGA. Combining this target concept with a highly efficient laser system currently under development at LLE will provide a very attractive path to IFE.