Present status and future prospects of IFE and high power laser research in Asia

The present status and future prospects of IFE research and high power laser applications in Asia are reviewed. At ILE, Osaka University, the Gekko XII and the Peta Watt laser system have been operated to investigate implosion hydrodynamics, fast ignition and relativistic laser plasma interactions. In particular, fast ignition experiments with cone shell targets have been carried out as joint UK-Japan and US-Japan collaboration programmes. In the experiments, imploded high density plasmas are heated by a 500 J level petawatt laser pulse. The thermal neutron yield is found to increase by three orders of magnitude by petawatt laser injection to the cone shell target. Laser plasma physics related to laser fusion and other applications has been studied at many institutes in Asia. Areas of research include Rayleigh-Taylor instability experiments, application of extreme ultraviolet radiation sources for lithography, laser particle acceleration, and x-ray lasers, to name a few. (author)