Fuel Target Implosion Uniformity in Heavy Ion Inertial Fusion

Heavy ion beam (HIB) inertial confinement fusion (ICF), or HIF would be a promising future energy source for society. 1 Particle accelerators produce HIBs with precise particle energies and pulse shapes with high energy efficiency of ~30-40%. Higher energy driver efficiency means that a lower fusion energy output is required to construct a HIF power station to supply ~1GW of electricity. The DT (Deuterium-Tritium) fusion fuel, with a total mass of several mg, must be compressed to about one thousand times solid density to reduce the input driver energy and to achieve an adequate burn fraction. The high density compression is a major challenge in ICF, requiring that non-uniformity in driver energy deposition be kept lower than a few percent. 2 The phase-controlled non-uniformity is realized in the HIF fuel target implosion by the wobbling HIBs, and the implosion non-uniformity is successfully mitigated in HIF. 1 , 3 The HIB axis can be oscillated sufficiently rapidly to improve the uniformity of energy deposition.