Abstract
We present the design of the first igniting fusion plasma in the laboratory by Lawson's criterion that produced 1.37 MJ of fusion energy, Hybrid-E experiment N210808 (August 8, 2021) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 075001 (2022)]. This design uses the indirect drive inertial confinement fusion approach to heat and compress a central “hot spot” of deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel using a surrounding dense DT fuel piston. Ignition occurs when the heating from absorption of particles created in the fusion process overcomes the loss mechanisms in the system for a duration of time. This letter describes key design changes which enabled a increase in an ignition figure of merit (generalized Lawson criterion) [Phys. Plasmas 28, 022704 (2021), Phys. Plasmas 25, 122704 (2018)]) and an eightfold increase in fusion energy output compared to predecessor experiments. We present simulations of the hot-spot conditions for experiment N210808 that show fundamentally different behavior compared to predecessor experiments and simulated metrics that are consistent with N210808 reaching for the first time in the laboratory “ignition.”
2 More- Received 22 June 2022
- Accepted 13 July 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.106.025201
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
Published by the American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Viewpoint
Fusion Turns Up the Heat
Published 8 August 2022
A laser-fusion scheme has achieved ignition—an important step on the road to energy production.
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