Burn characteristics of advanced fuel inertial fusion targets

Various aspects of burn of advanced fuel inertial fusion targets are discussed, including pure deuterium as well as D-³He targets. In the case of deuterium fuel, the mass of tritium and ³He created in D-D reactions is calculated as a function of the fuel ρR, keeping the fuel mass constant (20 mg). It has been found that as the fuel ρR is varied from 40 to 80 g/cm², the burn of ³He increases from 20 to 75%, whereas 95% of the tritium is consumed during the burn. An ignition temperature of 5 keV is considered in these calculations. It has also been found that introduction of a small fraction of tritium atoms (1%) uniformly distributed in the deuterium fuel allows a reduction in ignition temperature by more than a factor of 2. In the case of D-³He targets, an ignition temperature of the order of 10 keV is required, but introducing 1% tritium atoms in the fuel allows an ignition temperature of 3 keV.