High-performance inertial confinement fusion target implosions on OMEGA

The Omega Laser Facility is used to study inertial confinement fusion (ICF) concepts. This paper describes progress in direct-drive central hot-spot (CHS) ICF, shock ignition (SI) and fast ignition (FI) since the 2008 IAEA FEC conference. CHS cryogenic deuterium–tritium (DT) target implosions on OMEGA have produced the highest DT areal densities yet measured in ICF implosions (~300 mg cm−2). Integrated FI experiments have shown a significant increase in neutron yield caused by an appropriately timed high-intensity, high-energy laser pulse.