Abstract: An argon fluoride (ArF) laser system for inertial nuclear fusion energy production with lower required laser energy than other laser drivers. An Argon fluoride laser system uniformly illuminates a spherical capsule comprising an outer ablator wall surrounding an inner shell comprising the fusion fuel. The laser beams are adjusted spectrally to achieve a bandwidth of up to 12 THz and a coherence time as low as 80 femtoseconds that in combination with the short wavelength (193 nm) suppress laser plasma instabilities. Uniform spherical acceleration causes the inner shell of the target capsule to form a spherical assembly of compressed fuel surrounding a “hot spot” that has sufficient temperature, density and size to ignite and initiate a thermonuclear burn.

Abstract: A system for achieving very uniform illumination of a target. A beam of broadband spatially-coherent light is converted to light with a controlled spatial incoherence and focused on the target. An echelon-like grating breaks the beam up into a large number of differently delayed beamlets with delay increments larger than the coherence time of the beam, and a focusing lens overlaps the beamlets to produce at the target a complicated interference pattern modulated by a smooth envelope that characterizes the diffraction of an individual beamlet. On time scales long compared to the coherence time, the interference pattern averages out, leaving only the smooth diffraction envelope.