Proton fast ignition, a variant of laser-driven inertial confinement fusion potentially providing much higher energy gain with lower driver energies, will be studied with the aim of optimising the conversion efficiency of the short-pulse laser into proton beam energy, which needs to carry at least 15kJ at several MeV into a compressed DT fuel pellet in order to trigger ignition.
It is proposed to investigate this process in realistic (up to millimetre-scale) geometries using multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation with the EPOCH code.
The project will be led by Focused Energy GmbH, a fusion startup based in Darmstadt, Germany founded in August 2021, with contributions from major EU and US public laboratories and university groups.
Focused Energy GmbH, Germany;