PRINCIPLES OF INERTIAL CONFINEMENT FUSION - PHYSICS OF IMPLOSION AND THE CONCEPT OF INERTIAL FUSION ENERGY

The principles of laser fusion are the implosion of fuel pellets and t he inertial confinement of fusion plasma produced by implosion. The pr ocess contains a lot of interesting physics, some of which is related to other newly developing fields such as astrophysics, hydrodynamics w ith radiation and turbulence, nonequilibrium atomic physics, and mater ial science of extreme conditions. This, therefore, opens up new resea rch fields and methods in basic science. On the other hand, fusion res earch aims at energy development for the future. The state of the art of inertial confinement fusion has reached a level where a goal-orient ed program could be arranged for physics investigations and also techn ological developments.