MON-1-PL1 MON-1-PL2 The Fibre Laser Revolution Overview and status of Direct-Drive Inertial Confinement Fusion David N. Payne E. M Campbell Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom SO31 4QG Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14623, USA
[email protected] [email protected] Fibre lasers have been a revolution in laser technology for the manufacturing industry because of their high Laser Direct Drive (DD) is one of the three viable approaches for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) that offer a efficiency, robust, all solid state monolithic construction and reliability. The single-fibre power limit appears to potential path for high yield and ignition at the MegaJoule energy scale of the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The be around 20kW, more than enough for most applications. critical physics for direct drive is being studied on the OMEGA/OMEGA-EP and the NIF laser facilities. In the DD approach nominally identical laser beams are used to drive an imploding cryogenic shell of deuterium and tritium Fibre lasers have also caught the imagination for applications requiring beam combination up to a 100kW in the to obtain pressures exceeding 100 Gbars and temperatures greater than 5 KeV in a hot spot surrounded and near term, or multi MW in the future. Their near-perfect beam quality, stability and versatility, coupled with confined by a cold dense nearly Fermi-Degenerate fuel. Hydrodynamically scaled implosions are studied on the the low cost of the gain medium, make them ideal candidates for coherently-combining perhaps up to a 1000 30 kJ 60-beam OMEGA laser.