Physics World June 18, 2018
An international team of researchers (USA – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, industry, University of Rochester, MIT, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Germany) has shown that the fusion energy generated by the laser implosion of a deuterium-tritium fuel capsule is twice that of the kinetic energy of the implosion. They changed the shape of the laser pulses to create much more stable implosions. In 2014, these “high-foot” pulses each yielded up to 17 kJ of fusion energy (and later 26 kJ) – exceeding the roughly 10 kJ created in earlier experiments. They say they will be close to the long-sought goal of an overall net energy gain…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Early stages: laser preamplifiers at the National Ignition Facility. (Courtesy: CC BY-SA 3.0/Damien Jemison/LLNL)