Fuel pellets and optical systems for inertially confined fusion

Abstract

Current laser-driven ICF targets are complex sets of concentric spherical shells made from a variety of materials including the fuel (e.g., deuterium-tritium), glass, beryllium, gold, polymeric materials, organo-metallics, and several additional organic and inorganic materials depending on the particular experiments to be done. While we don't yet know what the reactor targets will be exactly, there is little reason to believe they will be just simple, low quality glass shells containing DT gas or simple spheres of deuterated polyethylene or other fuel. Consequently, we consider many of the current targets, materials, and fabrication techniques to be applicable to the long range problems of ICF reactor target fabrication. Many of our current material problems and fabrication techniques are discussed and various quality factors are presented in an attempt to bring an awareness of the possible fusion reactor target materials problems to the scientific and technical community.We should note that “target]” and “pellet” are used interchangeably and do not have any subtle variational significances.