Present status and future prospects of laser fusion research at Osaka

Recent progress of inertial confinement fusion has led us to begin a new research program towards laboratory demonstration of the thermonuclear ignition and burn. We have done an intensive R&D project addressing a number of physics and technical issues. They are (1) to evaluate the required laser energy for ignition and burn as well as the tolerable level of irradiation nonuniformity and target imperfections, (2) to develop uniform irradiation technology with existing twelve beams of GEKKO XII, to provide a stringent test of the theoretical and computational modeling and (3) to design and develop a new Iaser facility necessary for the ignition and burn.