What is the role of tritium-poor fuels in ICF?

摘要

The role of alternative fuels for ICF is studied by replacing some of the tritium with deuterium or helium-3, either homogeneously or heterogeneously, in a compressed fuel configuration with an ignited hotspot, allowing it to burn, and studying the correlations among gain, initial internal energy, escaped energy and tritium utilization. The compressed configurations satisfy pressure balance and the optimized proportions of the Meyer-ter-Vehn-Rosen model. There are significant gain penalties for improvements in tritium utilization or neutron loading. Estimates for the hydrodynamic efficiency of capsules directly driven by lasers are folded into these gain curves to obtain the minimum laser energies required for acceptable gains. Implications for reactor designs and system costs are discussed.