He collaborates widely internationally, with key partners including the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CEA, France, and University of Bordeaux.
Specific research areas
UPLiFT
UPLiFT is a £10 million UK-government funded programme developing key science and technologies for the direct drive approach to laser inertial fusion energy. This includes laser drivers, implosion targets, and direct drive physics. Robbie’s role is Chief Scientist. The project includes a large team of scientists and engineers at five institutions across the UK. The end goal is to develop a demonstration facility for commercially viable inertial fusion energy. As part of this, he is also lead author of UPLiFT’s new patent-pending laser concept which, if successful, has the potential to reduce the cost of diode pumped high-energy laser drivers by a factor of 10.
Shock-augmented ignition
Shock-augmented ignition (SAI) is a new laser inertial fusion concept which reduces the exposure to deleterious laser-plasma instabilities in comparison to shock ignition. Furthermore, by reducing the implosion velocity required for ignition in comparison to conventional implosion designs, exposure to Rayleigh-Taylor growth is reduced. By mitigating key degradation mechanisms has the potential to provide an optimal implosion design taking the best of both shock ignition and conventional designs.
Successful SAI experiments on NIF (indirect drive) and Omega (direct drive) have evaluated this concept. The former achieved a 1.8-times increase in areal density with respect to velocity-equivalent implosions, while the Omega implosions increased areal density by 1.55x and pressure by 2x.
Indirect-Drive
Robbie’s work identified the role of low-mode implosion asymmetries in NIF implosions. It showed these can cause neutron yield degradation while remaining invisible to the diagnostics that were commissioned on NIF at that time (~2012). Importantly this work also identified for the first time the deleterious role of ‘residual kinetic energy’ caused by low mode implosion asymmetries. This mechanism is broadly recognized as a key factor which had to be mitigated in order to achieve ignition. His involvement in this was recognized as he was one co-author on the ignition paper and the review of the National Ignition Campaign.
Fast & shock ignition
He has also performed research into fast-ignition, and shock ignition.
Panel/board Membership
He sits on several panels/boards including:
- A founding member and Chair of the UK Inertial Fusion Consortium
- UK Fusion Advisory Board
- UK Fusion Cluster: Advisory Board Member
- HiPER+: Advisory Board Member
- LaserLab Europe: ICF/IFE Expert Group Panel Member
Prior positions include:
- DOE Office of Science Inertial Fusion Energy Basic Research Needs Workshop: Panel Member
- European Physical Society Beam Plasma and Inertial Fusion Board
- NIF User Executive Committee
- Laboratory for Laser Energetics: Laboratory Basic Science Facilities Access Panel Member
Selected publications
Shock-augmented ignition approach to laser inertial fusion
RHH Scott, D Barlow, W Trickey, A Ruocco, K Glize, L Antonelli, M Khan, N Woolsey
Numerical Modeling of the Sensitivity of X-Ray Driven Implosions to Low-Mode Flux Asymmetries
RHH Scott et al
Achievement of Target Gain Larger than Unity in an Inertial Fusion Experiment
H Abu-Shawareb et al
Review of the National Ignition Campaign 2009-2012
J Lindl et al