Controlled thermonuclear fusion

Fusion power has not been achieved in any practical form, but scientific feasibility may perhaps be demonstrated in the next decade. The hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium are promising fusion fuels. To construct a system in which fusion can be induced, one must accomplish the following: create a plasma of the fuel to be ignited, contain the plasma in a restricted region of space so that the density remains high, and contain the plasma for a sufficiently long time to allow the fusion process to occur. Physical processes are investigated in the introductory section of the paper. The second section examines magnetic confinement and thermonuclear fusion. The next section discusses the geometry of magnetic confinement followed by discussions on the stability of magnetically confined plasmas and transport processes in confined plasmas. The current status of confinement in worldwide experiments is summarized. The chapter is completed with discussions of the following: laser-driven fusion; analytic estimates for energy production; compression by shocks; quasi-adiabatic compression of spheres and shells; confinement in the implosion of spherical shells; semi-empirical estimates of neutron production in shell implosions; and lasers for fusion