Burn Characteristics of Compressed Fuel Pellets for D-³He Inertial Fusion

The feasibility of using D-³He fuel in inertial confinement fusion is examined by using a hydrodynamics code that includes neutron and charged-particle transport routines. The use of a small amount of deuterium-tritium (D-T) ignitor is indispensable. Burn simulations are made for quasi-isobaric D-T/D-³He pellet models compressed to 5000 times the liquid density. Substantial fuel gains (∼500) are obtained from pellets having parameters ρR_D-T = 3 g/cm² and ρR_total = 14 g/cm² and a central spark temperature of 5 keV. The amount of driver energy needed to achieve these gains is estimated to be ∼30 MJ when the coupling efficiency is 10%. The driver energy requirement can be reduced by using spin-polarized D-T and D-³He fuels.