Will NIF Work

Abstract

It is vital that new clean and abundant sources of energy be developed for the sustainability of modern society. Nuclear fusion of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, if successful, might make a major contribution toward satisfying this need. The U.S. has an important effort aimed at achieving practical inertial confinement fusion, ICF, which has been under development for decades at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a giant laser to multiply-shock and thus quasi-isentropically compress a capsule of deuterium-tritium (DT) to high density and temperature, where the fusion rate is proportional to density squared times temperature to the fourth power. The principal problem that must be solved for NIF to work successfully is elimination of the Rayleigh-Tailor (R-T) instability that originates from the interface between the solid shell and the DT fuel within it. The R-T instability poisons the fusion reaction by reducing the temperature of the DT achieved by dynamic compression driven by the NIF laser. The primary technological problem today is one of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (CMMP), rather than laser technology and plasma physics. The CMMP of the fuel capsule that must be done to minimize growth of the R-T instability is yet to be done. Based on what is known today, it is unlikely that NIF will produce practical amounts of fusion energy.