Inertial Confinement Fusion

Inertial confinement fusion is a method of producing nuclear fusion energy by compressing and heating a small pellet of fusion fuel, typically the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, so quickly and symmetrically that the fuel own inertia holds it together long enough for fusion reactions to occur, in contrast to the magnetic confinement used by a tokamak or stellarator. In the leading approach, powerful lasers heat the inside of a small metal cylinder called a hohlraum, which radiates X rays that compress the fuel pellet and drive shock waves inward until the fuel reaches fusion conditions. The concept emerged from a 1957 Atoms for Peace conference exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, whose construction began in 1997, became in December 2022 the first fusion experiment ever to achieve scientific breakeven, producing 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy from a 2.05 megajoule laser input. That result, an energy gain of roughly 1.5, marked the first time a fusion experiment produced more energy than the energy directly delivered to its fuel.