External Seminar: An Overview of Progress at First Light Fusion

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First Light Fusion is pursuing a new approach to inertial fusion that uses a high- velocity projectile, rather than a laser, as the driver. This talk will outline, in an accessible way, the basic ideas and progress made at First Light in developing new theoretical, experimental and computational techniques. 

For example, First Light’s new pulsed power driver, called Machine Three (M3), is a plus/minus charged, low-inductance, parallel-plate transmission line pulsed power machine. It has a stored energy is 2.5 MJ and delivers currents that exceed 14 MA to accelerate projectiles to very high velocity. Nick will discuss how First Light uses basic theory, experimental observations from M3 and three-dimensional resistive magneto-hydrodynamic simulations to understand projectile-driven physics. 

This leads to a description, first using simplified spherical models for ignition and burn, of fusion energy gain in non-spherical situations such as those possible in very large projectile-driven fusion experiments. Lastly, Nick will outline initial calculations on First Light’s design vision of a power plant using a novel liquid-metal cooled reactor and highlight key areas of uncertainty.