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Zhang J, Wang WM, Yang XH, Wu D, Ma YY, Jiao JL, Zhang Z, Wu FY, Yuan XH, Li YT, Zhu JQ. Double-cone ignition scheme for inertial confinement fusion. Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci 2020; 378:20200015. [PMID: 33040660 PMCID: PMC7658757 DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2020.0015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/25/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
While major progress has been made in the research of inertial confinement fusion, significant challenges remain in the pursuit of ignition. To tackle the challenges, we propose a double-cone ignition (DCI) scheme, in which two head-on gold cones are used to confine deuterium-tritium (DT) shells imploded by high-power laser pulses. The scheme is composed of four progressive controllable processes: quasi-isentropic compression, acceleration, head-on collision and fast heating of the compressed fuel. The quasi-isentropic compression is performed inside two head-on cones. At the later stage of the compression, the DT shells in the cones are accelerated to forward velocities of hundreds of km s-1. The head-on collision of the compressed and accelerated fuels from the cone tips transfer the forward kinetic energy to the thermal energy of the colliding fuel with an increased density. The preheated high-density fuel can keep its status for a period of approximately 200 ps. Within this period, MeV electrons generated by ps heating laser pulses, guided by a ns laser-produced strong magnetic field further heat the fuel efficiently. Our simulations show that the implosion inside the head-on cones can greatly mitigate the energy requirement for compression; the collision can preheat the compressed fuel of approximately 300 g cm-3 to a temperature above keV. The fuel can then reach an ignition temperature of greater than 5 keV with magnetically assisted heating of MeV electrons generated by the heating laser pulses. Experimental campaigns to demonstrate the scheme have already begun. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Prospects for high gain inertial fusion energy (part 1)'.
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Affiliation(s)
- J. Zhang
- Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China
- Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas and School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
| | - W. M. Wang
- Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
- Department of Physics, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, People's Republic of China
| | - X. H. Yang
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
- Department of Physics, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, People's Republic of China
| | - D. Wu
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
- Institute for Fusion Theory and Simulation, Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, People's Republic of China
| | - Y. Y. Ma
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
- Department of Physics, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, People's Republic of China
| | - J. L. Jiao
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
- School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
| | - Z. Zhang
- Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
| | - F. Y. Wu
- Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas and School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
| | - X. H. Yuan
- Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas and School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
| | - Y. T. Li
- Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
| | - J. Q. Zhu
- Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
- National Laboratory of High Power lasers and Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Shanghai 201800, People's Republic of China
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