The inertial confinement fusion (ICF) program in China is to perform thermonuclear ignition and burning, and has made great progress so far. For ICF drivers, the laser facilities of SG-IIU (upgrading) and SG-IIIP (prototype) with both 8 beams and total laser energy output of tens kJ for 0.35μm wavelength (same below) and of SG-III with 48 beams and total laser energy of ~ 200kJ are operating...
Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) involves rapidly compressing an initial magnetically confined plasma by >300X volume compression. If near adiabatic compression is achieved, the final plasma the plasma can be heated to > 10 keV, and confined inertially to produce interesting fusion energy gain. General Fusion is developing a compression system using pneumatic pistons to collapse a cavity in...
Fusion reactions of protons with the boron isotope 11 (HB11) were considered as extremely difficult and impossible for a power reactor. This changed by several orders of magnitudes using picosecond (ps) lasers with powers >petawatt (PW) igniting fusion in a non-thermal way by direct conversion of laser energy into ultrahigh acceleration of plasma blocks [1]. The HB11 reaction produces...
The Z-Pinch driven fusion-fission hybrid reactor (Z-FFR) concept utilizes energetic neutrons produced by D-T fusion to drive a sub-critical fission blanket for energy production. Benefiting from an innovative local-holistic-ignition Z-pinch fusion target and advanced sub-critical fission blanket made of natural or depleted uranium, the Z-FFR has significant advantages in safety, economy and...
General Fusion (GF) is operating a new sequence of plasma devices called SPECTOR (Spherical Compact Toroid) capable of generating and compressing plasmas with a more spherical form factor, avoiding the concave liner geometry used on previous compression tests at GF. SPECTOR forms spherical tokamak plasmas by coaxial helicity injection into a flux conserver (R= 19 cm,...
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is the world’s largest and most powerful laser system for inertial confinement fusion. During the ignition campaign, the NIF is expected to generate shots with varying fusion yield (up to 20 MJ or 7.1e18 neutrons per shot). Neutron time of flight (nTOF) detectors are fielded in the NIF to measure neutron yield, ion...
