The heavy ion fusion program in the USA

The U.S. Department of Energy has established a new, larger inertial fusion energy (IFE) program. To manage program growth, we have developed a new IFE research plan and we have established a Virtual National Laboratory for Heavy Ion Fusion. There has been significant technical progress. Improvements in target design have reduced the predicted energy requirements by approximately a factor of two. There have also been important experiments on chamber dynamics and other inertial fusion technologies. The accelerator program has completed a number of small-scale experiments. Experiments with driver-scale beams are being designed-including experiments with driver-scale ion sources and injectors. Finally we are developing the technologies needed to build a major research facility known as the Integrated Research Experiment (IRE). (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.