XIV.—“Stepped” ignition

Nif Ignition

Fusion Ignition Research Experiment

Understanding the properties of high gain (alpha-dominated) fusion plasmas in an advanced toroidal configuration is the largest remaining open issue that must be addressed to provide the scientific foundation for an attractive magnetic fusion reactor. The critical parts of this science can be obtained in a compact high field tokamak which is also likely to provide the fastest and least expensiv...

Illuminating the Universe's Ignition

Car Ignition with Igbts

Magnetically assisted fast ignition.

Fast ignition (FI) is investigated via integrated particle-in-cell simulation including both generation and transport of fast electrons, where petawatt ignition lasers of 2 ps and compressed targets of a peak density of 300  g cm(-3) and areal density of 0.49  g cm(-2) at the core are taken. When a 20 MG static magnetic field is imposed across a conventional cone-free target, the energy couplin...