ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2026
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
January 2026
Latest News
Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
N. Aslan, T. Kammash
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 2 | September 1994 | Pages 184-191
Technical Paper | ICF Target | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A30342
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Interest in the use of magnetized targets to enhance energy multiplication in inertial confinement fusion has recently been revived after being ignored for some time. The addition of an externally applied magnetic field to a fuel volume to reduce thermal conduction losses represents one approach. The other approach is the subject examined, namely, self-generated fields created inside a target by beams that enter the pellet through a hole. The field, current, and pressure profiles in a two-region spherical plasma that might be representative of the magnetically insulated inertial confinement fusion concept are calculated in a self-consistent manner. The existence of a quasi-equilibrium soon after the formation of the plasma in the target is assumed, the appropriate magnetohydrodynamic equations in a multiregion plasma configuration are solved, and the parameters for such an equilibrium are established. An energy integral is employed to study the stability of these configurations against azimuthally symmetric perturbations, and the results are applied to some experimental as well as reactor-like systems. For certain configurations and input energies, such systems can be stable for the length of the burn.