Design of an ICF plant using a nuclear-driven solid-state laser

An ICF plant is designed to use nuclear-driven flashlamp-pumped solid-state lasers as fusion drivers. It is proposed to use a separated fission reactor with aerosol fuel to drive alkali metal excimer flashlamps as the pumping source for solid-state lasers. The first observation of nuclear-excited sodium excimer emission at 436 nm in a TRIGA reactor with 815 Torr of He-3 and 60 Torr of sodium vapor (at T = 924 K) is reported. The experiment demonstrates the feasibility of a nuclear-driven alkali metal excimer lamp. The compatibility of alkali metal excimers with different laser crystals is evaluated for driver efficiency. High overall laser efficiency ensures large fractional output power extraction from nuclear fusion by this plant. The suitability of laser crystals for the ICF plant is also presented.

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