Shock Ignition: A New Approach to High Gain Inertial Confinement Fusion on the National Ignition Facility

Shock ignition, an alternative concept for igniting thermonuclear fuel, is explored as a new approach to high gain, inertial confinement fusion targets for the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Results indicate thermonuclear yields of ∼120-250MJ may be possible with laser drive energies of 1-1.6 MJ, while gains of ∼50 may still be achievable at only ∼0.2MJ drive energy. The scaling of NIF energy gain with laser energy is found to be Gtilde 126E(MJ)^0.510. This offers the potential for high-gain targets that may lead to smaller, more economic fusion power reactors and a cheaper fusion energy development path.