A New Method for Producing Cryogenic Laser Fusion Targets

Abstract

The goal of the laser fusion program is the production of energy from nuclear fusion reactions induced by focusing powerful laser beams on very small targets that contain a mixture of deuterium and tritium (DT) fuel. If the laser beams can sufficiently compress and heat the target in a short enough time, the fuel will undergo nuclear fusion to produce more energy than was put into the system. Target design is an important part of this laser fusion program. Target geometries ranging from bare, hollow, glass, or metal microspheres to a multilayered or even multishell design are currently of interest [^1,2]. One feature common to the various target designs is the fuel core, the hollow sphere containing the DT fusing fuel. This core is typically a 100-μm-diameter glass microballoon (GMB) having a wall thickness of about 1 μm. The GMB is filled with up to 10 ng of DT, which corresponds to a room-temperature pressure of up to 10 MPa (100 atm).