Publications

Experimental demonstration of fusion-relevant conditions in magnetized liner inertial fusion

Gomez, Matthew R.; Jennings, Christopher A.; Awe, Thomas J.; Geissel, Matthias G.; Rovang, Dean C.; Chandler, Gordon A.; Cuneo, M.E.; Harvey-Thompson, Adam J.; Herrmann, Mark H.; Hess, Mark H.; Slutz, Stephen A.; Johns, Owen J.; Lamppa, Derek C.; Martin, Matthew; McBride, Ryan D.; Peterson, Kyle J.; Robertson, Grafton K.; Rochau, G.A.; Ruiz, Carlos L.; Savage, Mark E.; Sefkow, Adam B.; Smith, Ian C.; Stygar, William A.; Vesey, Roger A.; Sinars, Daniel S.; Hahn, Kelly D.; Hansen, Stephanie B.; Harding, Eric H.; Knapp, Patrick K.; Schmit, Paul S.

This Letter presents results from the first fully integrated experiments testing the magnetized liner inertial fusion concept [S.A. Slutz et al., Phys. Plasmas 17, 056303 (2010)], in which a cylinder of deuterium gas with a preimposed axial magnetic field of 10 T is heated by Z beamlet, a 2.5 kJ, 1 TW laser, and magnetically imploded by a 19 MA current with 100 ns rise time on the Z facility. Despite a predicted peak implosion velocity of only 70 km/s, the fuel reaches a stagnation temperature of approximately 3 keV, with T_e ≈ T_i, and produces up to 2e12 thermonuclear DD neutrons. In this study, X-ray emission indicates a hot fuel region with full width at half maximum ranging from 60 to 120 μm over a 6 mm height and lasting approximately 2 ns. The number of secondary deuterium-tritium neutrons observed was greater than 10¹⁰, indicating significant fuel magnetization given that the estimated radial areal density of the plasma is only 2 mg/cm².