Energy production by laser driven fusion energy is highly matured by spherical compression and ignition of deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel. An alternative scheme is the fast ignition where petawatt (PW)-picosecond (ps) laser pulses are used. A significant anomaly was measured and theoretically analyzed with very clean PW-ps laser pulses for avoiding relativistic self focusing. This permits a come-back of the side-on ignition scheme of uncompressed solid DT, which is in essential contrast to the spherical compression scheme. The conditions of side-on ignition thresholds needed exorbitantly high energy flux densities E*. These conditions are now in reach by using PW-ps laser pulses to verify side-on ignition for DT. Generalizing this to side-on igniting solid state density proton-Boron-11 (HB11) arrives at the surprising result that this is one order of magnitude more difficult than the DT fusion. This is in contrast to the well known impossibility of igniting HB11 by spherical laser compression and may offer fusion energy production with exclusion of neutron generation and nuclear radiation effects with a minimum of heat pollution in power stations and application for long mission space propulsion.

Controlled fusion energy from burning hydrogen with boron-11 is of interest because no neutrons are produced. Following the scheme of ignition by spherical irradiation by laser or particle beams, one has to deal with exorbitant conditions of densities and input energies. A new approach following the scheme of block ignition with laser pulses of picosecond (ps) duration and more than petawatt (PW) power led to the possibility of plane geometry irradiation of the fuel using the anomalous effect of block ignition for deuterium tritium (DT) based on updated conditions for the initial computations. We present the extension for H-11B resulting in a very less dramatic difference to DT than in the case of spherical pellet geometry. Ignition thresholds may be only about one order of magnitude higher and the needed temperatures of about 50 keV are no problem for the skin layer acceleration by nonlinear forces (SLANF) for the block generation.

Some preliminary views are presented to the topic “Fast High Density Plasma Blocks Driven by Picosecond Terawatt Lasers” of the UWS-International Workshop 1–4 December 2004 in Sydney, Australia, underlining the motivation to explain the difference between the relativistic and the subrelativistic effects of ps-laser pulse interaction with plasma at powers above TW. This refers to specifically selected experimental and theoretical presentations at the workshop containing results for explaining the differences but also the important applications for studies on the fast ignitor scheme for application on nuclear fusion energy. One of the aims with relativistic proton beams is to realize conditions of spark ignition, while the subrelativistic case implies the generation of fast plasma blocks eventually with the possibility to ignite a fusion flame in uncompressed solid DT fuel for a power station with high efficiency.

The measurement of very narrow high density plasma blocks of high ion energy from targets irradiated with ps-TW laser pulses based on a new skin depth interaction process is an ideal tool for application of ion implantation in materials, especially of silicon, GaAs, or conducting polymers, for micro-electronics as well as for low cost solar cells. A further application is for ion sources in accelerators with most specifications of many orders of magnitudes advances against classical ion sources. We report on near band gap generation of defects by implantation of ions as measured by optical absorption spectra. A further connection is given for studying the particle beam transforming of n-type semiconductors into p-type and vice versa as known from sub-threshold particle beams. The advantage consists in the use of avoiding aggressive or rare chemical materials when using the beam techniques for industrial applications.

Generation of high speed dense plasma blocks is well known from hydrodynamic theory and computations (PIC) with experimental confirmation by Badziak et al. (2005) since ps laser pulses with power above TW are available. These blocks may be used for fusion flame generation (thermonuclear propagation) in uncompressed solid state deuterium and tritium for very high gain uncomplicated operation in power stations. Hydrodynamic theory from computations from the end of 1970s to recent, genuine two fluid computations support the skin layer accelerations (SLA), by nonlinear (ponderomotive) forces as measured now in details under the uniquely selected conditions to suppress relativistic self-focusing by high contrast ratio and to keep plane geometry interaction. It is shown how the now available PW-ps laser pulses may provide the very extreme conditions for generating the fusion flames in solid state density DT.