Power Photonics for Green Earth- Strategic Approach to the Better Life -

Abstract

We have investigated the pathway to realize Laser Inertial (LIFE) as the primary energy for society, which is vital for the Green Earth (environmentally sustainable economic growth and prosperity for all mankind). The next step toward the fusion power plant is the engineering development of the elements and the integrated system of the LIFE. An integrated system development will open new applications to sciences and industries in many fields such as high energy density physics, advanced manufacturing, nuclear material processing, space, and medical engineerings, with the deployment of high rep-rate, high-average and peak power lasers. Laser fusion research started soon after the invention of laser. The purpose was clearly fixed on the development of new energy sources, which are clean, safe and abundant, in order to provide the primary energy for the future. The physics of laser-driven implosion and compression have been thoroughly investigated within an active collaborative and interactive international research community. We achieved temperatures of 10 8 K which is necessary for abundant fusion reactions to occur and densities of 10 3 times compression over the initial pellet density required for energy gain in separate experiments at ILE, Osaka University. We are now at the new phase where the fusion ignition, burn and energy gain are expected to be achieved with the Mega-Joule lasers such as NIF of the U.S. and LMJ of France in the time frame of 2011∼2015. Along with the research activities of world-leading laboratories into the physics of the implosion, the International Atomic Agency (IAEA) has been promoting international collaborative projects for the development of Inertial Energy. The first systematic project was performed taking the collaboration of more than 80 experts of the world. The result was published as a comprehensive book of 450 pages titled as Energy from Inertial Fusion in 1995. Since then, two successive Coordinative Research Projects (CRP) have been undertaken, the first entitled CRP on the Elements of Power Plant Design from 2000 to 2004 and the second entitled CRP on the Integrated Approach to Inertial Power Plants from 2006 to 2010. The progresses of high energy density physics being stimulated by IFE research and the high average power laser engineering of short pulse for IFE driver, are opening and creating new science opportunities and industries in material processing, radiation sources, charged particles and neutron sources, new material creation, and medical applications. These will provide important new technologies for the green earth and sustainable growth for the 21st Century. It appears that we are entering the new Era of Photonics.