Effect of inactive impurity ions on deuteron beam-fusion in fast ignition approach

The laser-generated deuteron beam is a promising scheme for providing the required energy for igniting a pre-compressed fuel in the fast ignition method in the inertial confinement fusion approach. Deuteron beam provides extra energy through beam-fusion(BF) reactions during the hot-spot formation in the pre-compressed fuel. During the compression and hot-spot formation stages, Impurities are produced due to the mixing of the fuel with the material of the structural elements of the target. So, the efficiency of BF of the deuteron beam in a spherical deuteron-triton(DT) fuel in the presence of impurity (such as beryllium, carbon, aluminium, and gold) with arbitrary concentration is investigated. Deuteron beam was considered with Maxwellian energy distribution at a temperature of 3 MeV, which passes through the pre-compressed contaminated DT fuel with a non-uniform density profile. It shows that an increase of mixed-ion charge state and density ratio results in the substantial diminution of the deuteron BF probability, which leads to a reduction in deuteron's extra bonus energy. The effect of fuel temperature on the BF probability in contaminated DT fuel is discussed. Calculations show that increasing the temperature enhanced BF probability. (© 2022 Wiley‐VCH GmbH)