Progress in Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion Research

This talk will give an overview of progress in Magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) research and discuss near term plans to test scaling and understanding. Significant progress has been made in a number of areas. The efficiency of preheating the fuel with the ZBL laser has improved from depositing 200-500J in the first MagLIF experiments to >1.2kJ. Advances in diagnostics have improved our understanding of plasma conditions as well as sources of mix contaminants. We have also demonstrated significant improvements to liner stability. These improvements have led to a ~5X increase in neutron yield (1.1e13 DD) and are now within ~50% of pre-shot simulation predictions. We are now working to develop a more capable MagLIF platform with increased pre-magnetization, drive current, and fuel pre-heating. These new capabilities are predicted to improve overall target performance by more than an order of magnitude in yield and will be used to test scaling predictions.