Effect of inactive impurities on the burning of ICF targets

Abstract

The efficiency of thermonuclear burning of the spherical deuterium-tritium (DT) plasma of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) targets in the presence of low-Z impurities (such as lithium, carbon, or beryllium) with arbitrary concentrations is investigated. The effect of impurities produced due to the mixing of the thermonuclear fuel with the material of the structural elements of the target during its compression on the process of target burning is studied, and the possibility of using solid noncryogenic thermonuclear fuels in ICF targets is analyzed. Analytical dependences of the ignition energy and target thermonuclear gain on the impurity concentration are obtained. The models are constructed for homogeneous and inhomogeneous plasmas for the case in which the burning is initiated in the central heated region of the target and then propagates into the surrounding relatively cold fuel. Two possible configurations of an inhomogeneous plasma, namely, an isobaric configuration formed in the case of spark ignition of the target and an isochoric configuration formed in the case of fast ignition, are considered. The results of numerical simulations of the burning of the DT plasma of ICF targets in a wide range of impurity concentrations are presented. The simulations were performed using the TEPA one-dimensional code, in which the thermonuclear burning kinetics is calculated by the Monte Carlo method. It is shown that the strongest negative effect related to the presence of impurities is an increase in the energy of target ignition. It is substantiated that the most promising solid noncryogenic fuel is DT hydride of beryllium (BeDT). The requirements to the plasma parameters at which BeDT can be used as a fuel in noncryogenic ICF targets are determined. Variants of using noncryogenic targets with a solid thermonuclear fuel are proposed.