A Tabletop Target Injector and Tracker for Laser-driven Targets

Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) with lasers is envisioned at high repetition rate such that an automated system must track each target in-flight, and the laser beamlines will need to be pointed rapidly and precisely to meet it. Direct Drive and Indirect Drive IFE concepts may have target speed more than 50 m/s and pointing accuracy requirement of about 25 microns. To evaluate the challenges of these requirements, we have built a compact, pressure-driven target injector and tracking sensor system that communicates to a fast-steering mirror. The injector propels 4.5 mm spherical objects. Tests are planned with solid balls as surrogate of an IFE target as well as capsules. We will present the conceptual design and first results of target injection and trajectory tracking on the prototype tabletop system.