Publications

Recent Progress and Future Potential of Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF)

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

The standard approaches to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) rely on implosion velocities greater than 300 km/s and spherical convergence to achieve the high fuel temperatures (T > 4 keV) and areal densities (ρr > 0.3 g/cm2) required for ignition1. Such high velocities are achieved by heating the outside surface of a spherical capsuleeither directly with a large number of laser beams (Direct Drive) or with x-rays generated within a hohlraum (Indirect Drive). A much more energetically efficient approach is to use the magnetic pressure generated by a pulsed power machine to directly drive an implosion. In this approach 5-10% of the stored energy can be converted to the implosion of a metal tube generally referred to as a “liner”. However, the implosion velocity is not very high 70-100 km/s and the convergence is cylindrical (rather than spherical) making it more difficult to achieve the high temperatures and areal densities needed for ignition.