Investigations on inertial confinement fusion at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center—VNIIEF

Since 30 years already, the All-Russia Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF) is engaged in investigations on the problem of inertial confinement fusion. The high-power laser facilities 'Iskra 5' (Kirillov G A et al 1990 Laser Particle Beams 8 827–31) and 'Luch' (Sukharev S A 3rd Int. Conf. on Solid State Lasers for Application to Inertial Confinement Fusion ed W H Lowdermilk Proc. SPIE 3492 12–24) were created and are operating now in the framework of this programme. The main lines of the work at these facilities are the investigation of the physics of thermonuclear targets and the development of laser technologies. This work resulted in the development of a project of the new generation facility 'Iskra-6'. This report presents the main results of these works carried out at Russian Federal Nuclear Center—VNIIEF in the period 1991–2002.