Inertial Confinement Fusion: Status and Challenges
Year: 2025
Type: review
Abstract: While a variety of laboratory-based fusion schemes have been studied for decades, the only fusion scheme yet to demonstrate fusion ignition and significant energy gain has been X-ray-driven inertially confined fusion. Ignition was demonstrated to occur at the thermodynamic conditions where it had long been expected, but the energy required for the implosion system to reach these conditions was more than projected years ago. This short review gives a status update on the three principal inertial confinement fusion schemes and research challenges going forward.
Author: Omar A. Hurricane
Institution: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4411086083