Prospects for high gain inertial fusion energy

Peter Norreys is Professor of Inertial Fusion Science at the University of Oxford and is an Individual Merit Fellow of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. He graduated from Royal Holloway College, University of London, in 1989 and spent one year as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Post-Doctoral Fellow at Osaka University Japan. He joined the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in 1990 on his return to the United Kingdom and has been involved in the study of relativistically intense laser-plasma interactions since then. He was awarded the 2013 Institute of Physics' Payne-Gaposchkin Medal and Prize for his original contributions to relativistic laser-plasma interaction physics. He has also received the 2006 American Physical Society’s Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research for his contributions to inertial fusion science and, as UK team leader, the 2007 Daiwa Adrian Prize for UK-Japan collaborative investigations into new areas of high energy density science. He is currently William Penney Fellow of AWE, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the American Physical Society and is a visiting Professor to Imperial College London.

Dr Stephen O Dean has worked on the development of fusion for energy for over 50 years. In 1966 he co-authored the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s Policy and Action Plan for Controlled Thermonuclear Research. In 1976, he led the preparation of a fusion plan that provided the basis for the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act of 1980. In 1979, he co-founded Fusion Power Associates (http://fusionpower.org) a non-profit research and educational foundation. He currently serves as its president. He holds a BS Physics from Boston College, SM Nuclear Engineering from MIT and Physics PhD from the University of Maryland. His PhD thesis involved experiments on laser-produced plasmas while working at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (1969-1972). His book Search for the Ultimate Energy Source (Springer, 2013) traces the history of the U.S. fusion program from its inception. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society.

Andrew Holland is the Executive Director of the Fusion Industry Association (FIA). Located in Washington, DC, Holland has worked at the intersections of science, energy, policy, and politics for two decades. He’s the author of the “Fusion Power – A 10 Year Plan for American Energy Security,” first published in 2013, laying out a roadmap for American leadership in fusion. Since creating the FIA in 2018, he has brought together 20 of the leading fusion companies to jointly coordinate on areas of common interest. He has advocated for commercial fusion power with the highest levels of governments, coordinated with regulators, and pitched private investors for greater support to fusion. He holds a MSc. in International Strategy and Economics from the University of St. Andrews and currently resides in Alexandria, VA.

Professor Tynan's current research is focused on the plasma physics of controlled nuclear fusion as an energy source. He studies the fundamental physics of turbulent transport in hot confined plasmas using both smaller scaled laboratory plasma devices as well as large scale fusion experiments located around the world. In addition, he is investigating how solid material surfaces interact with the boundary region of fusion plasmas, and how the materials are modified by that interaction. He is also interested in the larger issue of transitioning to a sustainable energy economy based upon a mixture of efficient end use technologies, large scale deployment of renewable energy sources, and incorporation of a new generation of nuclear technologies such as advanced fission and fusion reactor systems.  He received his PhD in 1991 from the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. He then spent several years studying the effect of sheared flows on plasma turbulence on experiments located in the Federal Republic of Germany and at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and joined the UCSD faculty in 1999.

After completing a PhD in plasma physics, Andrew joined AWE in 1997 in the High Altitude Nuclear Effects Team where he developed a novel capability to model Nuclear Induced Van Allen Belts, worked on Electromagnetic Pulse phenomenology, and won the Discovery Award for Early Career Scientific Innovation. Andrew later worked on thermonuclear burn modelling in support of Inertial Confinement Fusion and as a Team Leader in the Computational Physics Group. Since then, Andrew managed the Physics Certification programme and later led the High Performance Computing Group where he was involved in the procurement and installation of some of the largest computers in the UK. After acting as Head of Design Physics, Andrew was appointed Head of Plasma Physics in 2011. The Department’s main role is using high power lasers to underwrite high energy density physics simulations. Andrew was Asset Manager for the ORION laser, one of the largest science capital investments in the UK and managed several other science facilities. Also in 2011, Andrew became Head of Profession for Physics and in 2013 moved to be AWE Chief Scientist in which role he assured AWE Science and Capability and led the company’s Strategic External Outreach. He is now Head of Physics comprising 550 staff. Andrew was appointed as a visiting Professor at Imperial College, London in 2012, and is a Chartered Physicist, a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. Andrew was part of the 2015 Review of the US NNSA Inertial Confinement Fusion and High Energy Density Science Review in 2015 and sits on the NIF Management Advisory Committee and NNSA’s 2020 ICF, Ignition and High Yield Red Team Review Panel.

Kim Budil is the Principal Associate Director for Weapons and Complex Integration at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). She is responsible for the programs that ensure the safety, security, and effectiveness of the Nation’s nuclear deterrent and advancing the supporting science, technology, and engineering capabilities of the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP). Prior to this, she served as the Vice President for National Laboratories at the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) where she led the University’s oversight and governance of LLNL, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). She has served on many committees, including the LLNS/LANS Mission Committee and the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC), and has served as a board member for the Hertz, LANL, and Livermore Lab Foundations. Prior to joining UCOP, Budil worked for nearly three decades at LLNL. She joined LLNL in 1987 as a graduate student and held a variety of increasingly responsible positions across the Laboratory working in Weapons and Complex Integration, National Ignition Facility, Physical and Life Sciences, and Global Security. She served twice as a detailee in Washington, DC, most recently in 2009, spending nearly two years as a Senior Adviser to the Under Secretary for Science at the Department of Energy (DOE). She has MS and PhD degrees in Applied Science/Engineering from University of California, Davis and a BS in Physics from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr Budil also completed a certificate in National Security Affairs from the Bush School at Texas A&M University.

Dr Njema J. Frazier is a member of the Senior Executive Service and the Director of the Office of Experimental Sciences at the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). As Director, Dr Frazier serves as a senior expert in the field of experimental sciences and related research and development, as applied to the behavior and reliability of nuclear weapons. Dr Frazier has been with NNSA since 2001 and has previously served as Physicist, Acting Deputy, and Acting Director for a number of NNSA’s flagship scientific and technical programs established to ensure the United States maintains a safe, secure and effective nuclear weapons stockpile without explosive nuclear testing.  Prior to joining the NNSA, Dr. Frazier was a professional staff member for the US House of Representatives Committee on Science. A long-time trailblazer in science, Frazier was the first African-American woman to graduate with a physics degree from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as the first to receive a PhD in nuclear physics from Michigan State University.

E. Michael Campbell is the Director of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. Dr Campbell received his BSc in Engineering and Applied Science (1972) from the University of Pennsylvania, his MSc in Applied Physics (1974) from Princeton University, and his Doctor of Science (2005) from the University of Western Sydney. After positions as Associate Director of Laser Programs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Senior Vice President, Energy Group, at General Atomics, Director of Energy Systems at Logos Technologies, and Senior Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, he joined the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (UR/LLE) in 2015. Dr Campbell is an internationally known expert in inertial fusion, high-energy-density physics, high power lasers and their applications, and advanced energy technologies including Generation IV nuclear fission reactors and biofuels. He has won numerous awards including the Department of Energy’s E. O. Lawrence Award, American Physical Society’s John Dawson Award, the American Nuclear Society’s Edward Teller Award, and the Leadership Award of Fusion Power Associates. He is a Fellow of the American Physical. He holds four patents (and one pending) and has published over 200 articles in the scientific literature. Dr Campbell has been a member of numerous committees providing advice and strategy, including the National Academy of Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Berkeley National Laboratory, University of Texas, the National Research Council of Canada, and Lockheed Martin Corporation. He presently serves on the Board of Evans and Southerland Corporation.

Vladimir Tikhonchuk is recognized for his contributions to the understanding of laser-plasma coupling, laser-driven parametric instabilities, electron energy transport and the original design of alternative schemes for inertial confinement fusion. After receiving his PhD from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in 1974, he joined the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow where he received a Doctor of Science degree in 1987. From 2001 to 2017 he has been professor at the University of Bordeaux and leader of theoretical plasma group at the Centre Lasers Intenses et Applications (CELIA). After his retirement in 2017 he is Professor Emeritus at the University of Bordeaux and consulting the ELI-Beamline laboratory at the Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He was recognized in 2008 becoming a Senior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France, and in 2017 received the Edward Teller Award from the American Nuclear Society.

Professor Rose joined Imperial College in 2006 and since then has undertaken several roles at Imperial including the Head of Plasma Physics and the Vice-Dean of Natural Sciences. He has worked in plasma physics for all of his career, with a particular emphasis on plasmas produced using high-power lasers. He spent much of that time at the two high-power laser facilities in the UK: the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory’s Central Laser Facility where he became the Associate Director for Physics and at AWE Aldermaston where he was the Head of Plasma Physics. 

Professor Jie Zhang is a prominent laser-plasma physicist and worked at the University of Oxford and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the period of 1991-1998, and has continued his research at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Jiao Tong University since 1999.  In 2015, he was awarded the Edward Teller Medal, the most prestigious prize in the field of ICF and high energy density physics, by the American Nuclear Society. He was elected the Foreign Associate of American National Academy of Sciences(2012), the Foreign Member of British Royal Academy of Engineering(2011), the Fellow of Third World Academy of Sciences(2008), the member of the German National Academy of Sciences Neopoldina (2007), Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(2003). Professor Jie Zhang was the President of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) in the period of 2006-2017.  Under his leadership, SJTU made remarkable progress on its way to a world-class university.

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Dr Ridgers graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2003 with a MSci in Natural Sciences (first class honours) and completed his PhD at Imperial College London in 2008, on the subject of 'Magnetic Fields and Nonlocal Transport in Inertial Confinement Fusion Plasmas'. He moved to the University of Oxford in 2010, completing postdoctoral research into the importance of strong-field quantum electrodynamics in multi-petawatt laser-plasma interactions. In 2013 he was appointed a lecturer at the University of York and since 2018 has held the position of Senior Lecturer there.

Professor Mark Thomson is Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). STFC, which is one of the nine councils of UK Research and Innovation, responsible for particle physics, astrophysics, space science and nuclear physics. He is also responsible for the large-scale multidisciplinary research facilities at the UK National Laboratories. Within UKRI, Professor Thomson leads on infrastructure, including e-Infrastructure, and is currently directing the work to produce the UK’s first Research and Innovation Infrastructure Roadmap, which will be released in 2019. Professor Thomson has held national and international research leadership roles at the forefront of particle physics in both neutrino physics and collider physics. Most recently, he has been the co-leader of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), a collaboration of over 1000 scientists and engineers. Beyond his own research, Professor Thomson has held numerous research oversight roles in the UK and abroad. In 2013, he published “Modern Particle Physics”, a textbook that has been widely adopted for undergraduate courses at universities around the globe.

Ian Chapman became CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority and Director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in October 2016. He has held a number of international roles in fusion, including membership of the Princeton Plasma Physics Advisory board, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Plasma Physics advisory board and chairing the IAEA International Fusion Research Committee. His research has been recognised with a number of international awards, including the Institute of Physics Paterson Medal in 2013, the European Physical Society Early Career Prize in 2014, the American Physical Society Stix Award in 2017 and the Royal Society Kavli Medal in 2019. He was made a Fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2013 and became a visiting Professor at Durham University in 2015.

Professor Koepke’s research areas include discovery plasma science (wave-particle interactions, instabilities, turbulence-induced energy transport, dynamical complexity), space-related lab experiments, dusty plasmas, driven-oscillator spatiotemporal phenomena, and plasma diagnostic techniques. Previous positions at NASA-Goddard, LLNL, and University of Washington preceded his 1987 launching of the plasma physics program at WVU. He held visiting appointments at Sandia National Laboratory, Universities of Kiel, Greifswald, and Innsbruck, held Affiliated Professor status at KTH-Stockholm (2007-2010), and has Visiting Professor status at University of Strathclyde, UK (2012-2020). He represented the US on IUPAP (2005-2011) and served (2010-2011) as Acting Research Division Director within DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences. He is Fellow of APS, JSPS (Japan), and IOP (UK), PPCF journal Deputy Editor, Omega Laser User Group Chair, former APS-Gaseous Electronics Conference Secretary, former APS-DPP Chair, former DOE-SC-FESAC Chair, Affiliated Member of both DOE-NNSA Center for Astrophysical Plasma Properties (2017-19) and DOE-SC Center for Predictive Control of Plasma Kinetics (since 2009).