Development of advanced fuel inertial fusion targets

This paper discusses the implications of using different fuels, including pure deuterium, deuterium-tritium, deuterium-helium³, and proton-boron¹¹, on safety and environmental compatibility of the fusion reactor, as well as on the driver requirements. Due to present-day technology limitations, it seems likely that the first generation of the fusion reactors will be based on a deuterium-tritium cycle. Such a scheme, however, would pose serious problems, including neutron activation and tritium handling. We show that by developing low-level tritium inertial fusion targets, one may substantially reduce the daily use of tritium in the reactor that may ultimately lead to a reduction in the overall tritium inventory in the power plant. Such reduced tritium targets will still generate sufficient energy to run the power plant economically.