Indirect-Drive Fusion Target Design for Commercial Fusion Energy

Abstract

This paper presents the physics basis for commercially relevant laser indirect-drive (LID) (radiation-driven) inertial fusion energy (IFE) using a 10 MJ laser driver. To date, this approach, proven at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), remains the first and only controlled fusion method to demonstrate the key physics required for fusion energy production, including a self-sustained burning plasma, substantially de-risking the path to commercial fusion energy. Building directly on these results, we present scaled designs to larger target sizes and fusion gains relevant for commercial power generation ($G\sim 26$--$43$). The designs remain close to experimentally demonstrated ignition physics, modifying target components to improve scalability, manufacturability, and cost-effectiveness for fusion energy applications while preserving ignition-relevant implosion physics and fusion power plant compatibility. The baseline platform retains a high-density carbon ablator and clean cryogenic DT fuel layering while extending ignition platforms to substantially larger fuel masses (exceeding 10 times that of current ignition experiments at the NIF) and higher burn fractions ($\sim$40\%) with total areal densities at stagnation of $\sim$3~g/cm$^2$. Benchmarked simulations anchored to NIF ignition experiments (using HYDRA and LASNEX) predict that these designs achieve robust ignition and propagating burn at substantially higher fusion yields (265--427~MJ) with significant ignition margin (2--4$\times$ relative to NIF) against hydrodynamic instabilities and representative power-plant non-idealities, including low-mode asymmetry, polycrystalline DT ice roughness, HDC ablator voids, and target-support and fill-hole perturbations. We also show that implosion symmetry and laser-plasma interactions (LPI) can be controlled with our novel multi-beam configuration using thousands of laser beam-lines.