FST- TECHNOLOGIES FOR HIGH REP-RATE PRODUCTION OF HIPER SCALE CRYOGENIC TARGETS

The target factory of an Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) power plant (or reactor) must supply the targets with a rate of 1-10 Hz including their injection and transport through the chamber. HiPER is a proposed European High Power laser Energy Research facility dedicated to demonstrate the feasibility of laser driven fusion for IFE reactor. The work of HiPER facility requires formation & delivery of cryogenic free-standing targets with a rate of more than 1 Hz. To meet these requirements, an approach to fuel layering based on conduction cooling of a batch of moving spherical targets has been developed at the Lebedev Physical Institute (LPI). The approach demands to use free-standing targets in each production step: fuel filling, fuel layering, target characterization and injection. In this report, the expert results on the development of a specialized layering module prototype for a high reprate FST formation of HiPER cryogenic targets are presented.