Experimental Demonstration of Fusion-Relevant Conditions in Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion.

This Letter presents results from the first fully integrated experiments testing the magnetized liner inertial fusion concept [S. A. Slutz et at, Phys. Plasmas 17, 056303 (2010)], in which a cylinder of deuterium gas with a preimposed 10 T axial magnetic field is heated by Z beamlet, a 2.5 kJ, 1 TW laser, and magnetically imploded by a 19 MA, 100 ns rise time current on the Z facility. Despite a predicted peak implosion velocity of only 70 km/s, the fuel reaches a stagnation temperature of approximately 3 keV, with Te ≈ Ti, and produces up to 2 × 1012 thermonuclear deuterium-deuterium neutrons. X-ray emission indicates a hot fuel region with full width at half maximum ranging from 60 to 120 μn over a 6 mm height and lasting approximately 2 ns. Greater than 1010 secondary deuterium-tritium neutrons were observed, indicating significant fuel magnetization given that the estimated radial areal density of the plasma is only 2 mg/cm². [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]