Overview and recent progress in SBS PCM approach to self-navigation of lasers on direct drive IFE targets

摘要

Current status of recently proposed novel approach to inertial fusion energy technology, where phase conjugating mirrors generated by stimulated Brillouin scattering are employed to take care of automatic self-navigation of every individual laser beam on injected pellets, has been reviewed. This new technology is of a particular importance to the direct drive schemes of pellets irradiation as assumed, e.g., in HiPER project. If successful also in its full scale realization, such an aiming scheme would greatly reduce the technical challenges of adjusting large and heavy optical elements on each shot in a system with a repetition rate of at least several Hertz. In the gradual step-by-step tuning of this technology, in this paper a close attention has been payed to the unconverted basic harmonic issue with a special Faraday isolator design proposed.