High-density and high-ρR fuel assembly for fast-ignition inertial confinement fusion -: art. no. 110702

Scaling relations to optimize implosion parameters for fast-ignition inertial confinement fusion are derived and used to design high-gain fast-ignition targets. A method to assemble thermonuclear fuel at high densities, high rho R, and with a small-size hot spot is presented. Massive cryogenic shells can be imploded with a low implosion velocity V-I on a low adiabat alpha using the relaxation-pulse technique. While the low V-I yields a small hot spot, the low alpha leads to large peak values of the density and areal density. It is shown that a 750 kJ laser can assemble fuel with V-I similar or equal to 1.7x10(7) cm/s, alpha similar or equal to 0.7, rho similar or equal to 400 g/cc, rho R similar or equal to 3 g/cm(2), and a hot-spot volume of less than 10% of the compressed core. If fully ignited, this fuel assembly can produce high gains of interest to inertial fusion energy applications. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.