Unconventional, promising approaches to inertial fusion energy (IFE) proposed and studied in the framework of IFE keep-in-touch activity at Frascati EURATOM-ENEA Association will be reconsidered for the present more advanced technological context associated to a planned large installations scenario. Then the possibility to generate laser-produced fast heavy-ion sources (e.g., Bi ions, tens GeV) will be explored taking as reference results obtained in the FIGEX experiment scaled toward thermonuclear regimes. A possible dimensioning of such sources will be also given as well as the associated laser requirements.

The U.S. Heavy Ion Fusion Virtual National Laboratory is continuing research into ion sources and injectors that simultaneously provide high current (0.5–1.0 A) and high brightness (normalized emittance better than 1.0 π-mm-mr). The central issue of focus is whether to continue pursuing the traditional approach of large surface ionization sources or to adopt a multiaperture approach that transports many smaller “beamlets” separately at low energies before allowing them to merge. For the large surface source concept, the recent commissioning of the 2-MeV injector for the High Current eXperiment has increased our understanding of the beam quality limitations for these sources. We have also improved our techniques for fabricating large diameter aluminosilicate sources to improve lifetime and emission uniformity. For the multiaperture approach, we are continuing to study the feasibility of small surface sources and a RF-induced plasma source in preparation for beamlet merging experiments, while continuing to run computer simulations for better understanding of this alternate concept. Experiments into both architectures will be performed on a newly commissioned ion source test stand at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory called STS-500. This stand test provides a platform for testing a variety of ion sources and accelerating structures with 500-kV, 17-μs pulses. Recent progress in these areas is discussed as well as plans for future experiments.

The production of highly charged ions in a CO2 laser-generated plasma is compared for different laser pulse-time structures. The work was performed at the CERN Laser Ion Source, which has the aim of developing a high current, high charge-state ion source for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). When an intense laser pulse is focused onto a high-Z metal target, the ions expanding in the plasma plume are suitable for extraction from the plasma and matching into a synchrotron. For the first time, a comparison is made between free-running pulses with randomly fluctuating intensity, and mode-locked pulse trains with a reproducible structure and the same energy. Despite the lower power density with respect to the mode-locked pulse train, the free-running pulse provides higher charge states and higher yield.