Inertial confinement fusion research by particle beams at ILE Osaka

Abstract

Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) research has been extensively advanced with the increase of the focusable power on target by the development of glass laser technology and its higher harmonic generation (Yamanaka & Kato et al. 1981) and by CO2 lasers (Yamanaka & Nakai et al. 1981) which cover the wavelength range from 10 μm to 0·25 μm and power densities up to 1017 W/cm2. With improved understanding of the implosion in the fuel pellet, breakeven conditions, or ignition, are expected to be achieved within the 1980's with the construction of lasers in the region of 100 kJ and 100 TW output power.