- Assess and summarize the status of science and technology for Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) in the U.S. and abroad.
- Assess enabling science and technologies common to Inertial Confinement Fusion and IFE and define a set of priority research opportunities that address the research and development (R&D) challenges unique to IFE, along with evaluation criteria to assess ongoing progress in an IFE technology development program.
- Assess the maturity and potential of the various IFE concepts toward a path to a viable IFE fusion pilot plant. Use Technology Readiness Level (TRL) methodology to guide the R&D demonstration of ignition and reactor-level gain for each concept:
- Demonstration of ignition and reactor-level gain
- Manufacturing and mass production of reactor-compatible targets
- Driver technology at reactor-compatible energy, efficiency, and repetition rate
- Target injection, tracking and engagement at reactor-compatible specifications
- Chamber design and first wall materials
- Self-consistency of the proposed concepts regarding an integrated power
plant design, to inform the formation of a balanced IFE program
- Identify magnetic fusion energy (MFE) efforts in the United States and abroad that could be leveraged to advance IFE (e.g., blanket, structural, and plasma- facing materials development, deuterium-tritium fuel cycle processing, remote handling technology, safety analysis tools, waste stream management, modeling and simulation, etc.), and identify where there are substantive differences in these systems that require IFE-specific development.
- Assess the role of the private sector, including public-private partnerships in a national IFE Program and design of a fusion pilot plant.
Workshop Charge
Assessment of IFE research opportunities should span experiments, theory and simulation, artificial Intelligence and machine Learning, diagnostics, drivers, targets, target delivery, integrated plant design, and systems engineering.
The workshop is expected to provide FES with a set of priority research opportunities (PROs) that can inform future research efforts in IFE and build a community of next-generation researchers in this area. The findings of this workshop will be summarized in a report that should be submitted to FES within three months after the meeting.