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 similar to 120-250 MJ may be possible with laser drive energies of 1-1.6 MJ, while gains of similar to 50 may still be achievable at only similar to 0.2 MJ drive energy. The scaling of NIF energy gain with laser energy is found to be G similar to 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.