Aachen PK 2003 – scientific programme

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P: Plasmaphysik

P 2: Heavy Ion Physics

P 2.4: Talk

Monday, March 17, 2003, 16:45–17:05, FO2

Petawatt-Picosecond Laser Produced Ion Beams for High Gain Fusion at Block Ignition — •Heinrich Hora — Dept. Theoret. Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia

Similar to the Nuckolls-Wood scheme of PW-ps generated intense electron beam fusion in very high density DT plasma propagating into low density and very large mass fuel, we avoid the difficulties of the electron beams by using DT ion beams. This leads to ignition conditions of particle beam fusion for very high gain in low (solid state) density plasma avoiding the compression. The necessary DT-beam current densities above 10¹⁰ A/cm² can be realized as the new block ignitor following from the anomalous ion beam emission effect measured by Badziak et al [1] and explained as kin layer interaction [2]. This direct result leads to new conditions of laser fusion [3] where -similar to the Nuckolls-Wood scheme - 10 kJ laser pulses may produce 100 MJ and more fusion energy.

[1] Badziak, J., Kozlov A.A., et al, Laser and Particle Beams 17, 323 (1999)

[2] Hora H., Badziak J., Boody F.P., et al. Opt. Comm. 207, 333 (2002)

[3] Hora H., Pneg H.S., Zhang W.Y., Osman F., SPIE Confe. Vol. 4941, 37 (2002)