San Diego, California, 17-19 June 2002

Target Fabrication and Compressor Requirements for Fast Ignition

M. C. Herrmann, D. Callahan-Miller, S.P. Hatchett, M. Tabak

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

S.A. Slutz

Sandia Naitonal Laboratory

The density and pressure of the stagnated DT fuel for fast ignition can be much lower than the density and pressure of the fuel in hot spot ignition. This may significantly relax the requirements for both the driver(compressor) and target fabrication systems of an inertial fusion energy power plant.

There are several approaches one can take to simplify the IFE power plant. One approach would be to lower the intensity (W/cm²) used to drive the capsule reducing the power needed from the compressor. Another possibility would be increasing the tolerances on various aspects of the capsule fabrication. For example, since mix of cold fuel into the hot spot is no longer a concern the allowable ablator and ice surface roughness might be increased. This may significantly impact both the processes and materials used for target fabrication. More speculative ideas such as capsules filled with liquid DT may also be possible. In this talk these examples will be studied in order to quantify how the capsule smoothness and driver power required might be affected.

This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48.