At the Institute, research is being carried out on inertial confinement fusion using lasers, as well as on fusion with strong magnetic fields in collaboration with scientists from leading European universities. IPPL participates in the HiPER+ and Eurofusion research networks for this purpose. HiPER+ (High Power Energy Research+) program is a European programme on Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) with the mission to demonstrate laser-driven ignition in the direct-drive scheme and to develop pathway technologies for the commercial fusion reactor. (www.laserfusion.eu/)

Atzeni, S., Batani, D., Danson, C.N., Gizzi, L.A., Le Pape, S., Miquel, J-L., Perlado, M., Scott, R.H.H., Tatarakis, M., Tikhonchuk, V., Volpe, L. (2022). Breakthrough at the NIF paves the way to inertial fusion energy. Europhysics News, 53, 18-23. https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2022106

Batani, D., Colaïtis, A., Consoli, F., Danson, C.N., Gizzi, L.A., Honrubia, J., Kühl, T., Le Pape, S., Miquel, J.-L., Perlado, J.M., Scott, R.H.H., Tatarakis, M., Tikhonchuk, V., Volpe, L. (2023). Future for inertial-fusion energy in Europe: a roadmap. High Power Laser Science and Engineering, 11, e83. https://doi.org/10.1017/hpl.2023.80

Research Areas

a) Study of the early time dynamics of ablators 

Study of the early time dynamics of ablators using pulsed lasers and preheating studies with CW lasers. Investigation of the “imprint” mechanisms and seeding instability dynamics. Scaled dynamics of ablator. Materials like Au, Al, Si, CH, W, C and multilayer targets under extreme loading conditions.

Selected publications

Kaselouris, E., Fitilis, I., Skoulakis, A., Orphanos, Y., Koundourakis, G., Clark, E. L., Chatzakis, J., Bakarezos, M., Papadogiannis, N. A., Dimitriou, V., & Tatarakis, M. (2020). The importance of the laser pulse–ablator interaction dynamics prior to the ablation plasma phase in inertial confinement fusion studies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 378(2184), 20200030. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2020.0030 

Kaselouris, E., Skoulakis, A., Tazes, I., Orphanos, Y., Fitilis, I., Bakarezos, E., Papadogiannis, N., Dimitriou, V., & Tatarakis, M. (2022). Preliminary study of early time dynamics during pulsed laser interaction with a CH ablator target. 48th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics, June 27 – July 1. https://info.fusion.ciemat.es/OCS/EPS2022PAP/pdf/P1a.203.pdf

b) Plasma facing component (PFC) damage induced by runaway electron incidence

Modelling of the RE-induced C and W damage experiments in WEST and AUG tokamaks (i) LS-DYNA modelling of the PFC thermomechanical response (in collaboration with KTH, Stockholm). (ii) Understanding of the PFC explosion mechanism (in collaboration with KTH, Stockholm).