Experimental evidence of impact ignition: 100-fold increase of neutron yield by impactor collision.
We performed integrated experiments on impact ignition, in which a portion of a deuterated polystyrene (CD) shell was accelerated to about 600 km/s and was collided with precompressed CD fuel. The kinetic energy of the impactor was efficiently converted into thermal energy generating a temperature of about 1.6 keV. We achieved a two-order-of-magnitude increase in the neutron yield by optimizing the timing of the impact collision, demonstrating the high potential of impact ignition for fusion energy production.
Azechi
H
H
Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Sakaiya
T
T
Watari
T
T
Karasik
M
M
Saito
H
H
Ohtani
K
K
Takeda
K
K
Hosoda
H
H
Shiraga
H
H
Nakai
M
M
Shigemori
K
K
Fujioka
S
S
Murakami
M
M
Nagatomo
H
H
Johzaki
T
T
Gardner
J
J
Colombant
D G
DG
Bates
J W
JW
Velikovich
A L
AL
Aglitskiy
Y
Y
Weaver
J
J
Obenschain
S
S
Eliezer
S
S
Kodama
R
R
Norimatsu
T
T
Fujita
H
H
Mima
K
K
Kan
H
H