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Inertial confinement

Also written ICF

Compressing fuel so fast that its own inertia holds it together long enough to burn: nanoseconds, not seconds. Every ICF approach shares the same open problem beyond ignition itself: repeating a shot several times a second at low enough cost per shot to run a power plant, which no driver has yet demonstrated.

In the record: 12 companies, 3 laboratories and programmes, 9 devices and 0 reactor designs. These counts include Laser ICF, indirect drive, Laser ICF, direct drive, Heavy-ion ICF and Projectile-driven.

Not yet in the record for this approach: reactor designs.

Related approaches

Broader: Fusion

Narrower:

  • Laser ICF, indirect drive Laser energy is converted to X-rays inside a small gold or uranium can (a hohlraum), and the X-rays drive the capsule. The NIF configuration. Only about a tenth of the laser energy ends up absorbed by the capsule, most of the rest heating the hohlraum wall, which is the main efficiency cost indirect drive carries relative to direct drive.
  • Laser ICF, direct drive Laser beams strike the fuel capsule directly. More efficient than indirect drive in principle, but far more sensitive to how evenly the beams are applied.
  • Heavy-ion ICF Heavy ion beams rather than lasers deliver the compression energy. Accelerators are efficient and repeat readily, which lasers of this scale do not. No facility has been built at fusion-relevant scale; the main open problem is focusing multiple intense ion beams onto a millimetre-scale target simultaneously.
  • Projectile-driven A physical projectile accelerated to extreme velocity compresses the fuel on impact. The main open problem is achieving symmetric compression from one, or a few, points of impact, where laser and heavy-ion approaches can spread the drive over many beams.

Companies 12

Includes companies recorded under a narrower approach, named beside each.

Laboratories and programmes 3

Devices 9

Operating devices first, then those being built or planned, then those shut down, suspended or cancelled.

  • FIRST LIGHT Operating First Light Fusion · GB · Projectile-driven
  • GEKKO XII Operating Osaka University · JP
  • LFEX Operating Osaka University · JP
  • LMJ Operating CEA · FR
  • National Ignition Facility Operating Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory · US · Laser ICF, indirect drive · 31 measurements
  • OMEGA Operating University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics · US · Laser ICF, direct drive · 1 measurement
  • ATLAS (Marvel Fusion) Under construction Marvel Fusion · US
  • HB11 Planned HB11 Energy · AU
  • INNOVEN ENERGY LLC Planned Innoven Energy · US

Measurements

2 devices using this approach carry 32 measurements: 29 claimed, 3 achieved. The values, each with its status and source, are on the benchmark and on each device's page. Most measured: National Ignition Facility (31), OMEGA (1).

Guides

  • Fusion approaches compared Every family of fusion machine, how each holds its fuel, the best result this dataset holds for it, its main unsolved problem and the organisations pursuing it.
  • Compare approaches and devices How to use the comparison pages to set two approaches side by side, and the device table and leaderboards to compare individual machines.

Inertial confinement in the glossary · Fusion overview · All approaches