Some remarks on inertial confinement of very-high-density plasmas

This article first considers the ignition processes at the disposal of engineers trying to get energy out of thermonuclear reactions. In all cases they are based on an implosion mechanism, in which a liner (spherical or cylindrical) is driven towards a center or an axis of symmetry and strikes and compresses a target composed mainly of thermonuclear fuel. The liner speed required for this process is achieved either by ablation drive or plasma-liner impact. Further discussion involves a quasi-spherical snow-plough collapse, gas bubbles injected by fast valves, compression of a compact torus by means of a plasma liner, and a hybrid inertial confinement reactor