While major progress has been made in the research of inertial confinement fusion, significant challenges remain in the pursuit of ignition. To tackle the challenges, we propose a double-cone ignition (DCI) scheme, in which two head-on gold cones are used to confine deuterium–tritium (DT) shells imploded by high-power laser pulses. The scheme is composed of four progressive controllable processes: quasi-isentropic compression, acceleration, head-on collision and fast heating of the compressed fuel. The quasi-isentropic compression is performed inside two head-on cones. At the later stage of the compression, the DT shells in the cones are accelerated to forward velocities of hundreds of km s –1 . The head-on collision of the compressed and accelerated fuels from the cone tips transfer the forward kinetic energy to the thermal energy of the colliding fuel with an increased density. The preheated high-density fuel can keep its status for a period of approximately 200 ps. Within this period, MeV electrons generated by ps heating laser pulses, guided by a ns laser-produced strong magnetic field further heat the fuel efficiently. Our simulations show that the implosion inside the head-on cones can greatly mitigate the energy requirement for compression; the collision can preheat the compressed fuel of approximately 300 g cm −3 to a temperature above keV. The fuel can then reach an ignition temperature of greater than 5 keV with magnetically assisted heating of MeV electrons generated by the heating laser pulses. Experimental campaigns to demonstrate the scheme have already begun. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Prospects for high gain inertial fusion energy (part 1)’.

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Owing to its unusual bonding and vast variety of unique crystal structures, boron is one of the most fascinating elements in the periodic table . Here we report the large-scale synthesis of well-ordered boron nanowires and their structural stability at high pressure. Boron nanowires with uniform diameter and length grown vertically on silicon substrates were synthesized by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering with a target of pure boron using argon as the sputtering atmosphere without involvement of templates and catalysts. Detailed characterization by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and electron diffraction indicates that the boron nanowires are amorphous. Structural stability of the boron nanowires at room temperature has been investigated by means of in situ high-pressure energy-dispersive x-ray powder diffraction using synchrotron radiation in a diamond anvil cell. No crystallization was observed up to a pressure of 103.5 GPa, suggesting that the amorphous structure of boron nanowires is stable under high pressure at ambient temperature.