An industrial approach to inertial fusion energy
An industrial approach to inertial fusion energy lead image
A collaboration between the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester, national labs, and private industry has developed an approach to inertial confinement fusion that leverages and exploits ideas thought to be incompatible.
Prior research had considered energizing a fusion target primarily with X-rays or a laser, but not both. Each of these approaches has advantages, but is also subject to limitations. Now, Thomas et al. showed the best features of each can be combined — using a novel laser from Xcimer Energy and targets made by General Atomics — in a manner that circumvents common problems.
“Existing systems have always needed many tens or hundreds of beams and thousands of precision optics, but fusion energy will need to be much simpler, higher energy, and higher efficiency,” said author Cliff Thomas. “Our approach makes it easy to smooth the absorbed energy, and to the point where we can use two beams, which dramatically reduces complexity and cost.”
The high-energy concept depends on principles that have been demonstrated individually, and now together in state-of-the-art multidimensional simulations. The laser and target are also meant to work seamlessly with a chamber that lasts decades by virtue of a liquid wall.
“These findings suggest much higher fusion performance is possible with new systems, and might also be applied to existing facilities,” Thomas said.
The team’s future work will refine the hybrid X-ray/laser approach and perform several proof-of-principle experiments on contemporary facilities. Tests of the Xcimer laser system have also just begun in Denver, Colorado, and will proceed in parallel.
Source: “Hybrid direct drive with a two-sided ultraviolet laser,” by C. A. Thomas, M. Tabak, N. B. Alexander, C. D. Galloway, E. M. Campbell, M. P. Farrell, J. L. Kline, D. S. Montgomery, M. J. Schmitt, A. R. Christopherson, and A. Valys, Physics of Plasmas (2024). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0221201 .
