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A new technique to monitor a process called 'fast ignition' has been developed, in what could be a critical step towards a viable method of creating controlled nuclear fusion.

Fusion ignition, the point at which a nuclear reaction becomes self-sustaining, is one of the great hopes for a new generation of clean, cheap energy generation. But while the reactions have been seen in the cores of thermonuclear weapons, it has yet to be achieved in a controlled manner in a reactor.

One of the possibilities for developing the tech for real is known as the fast ignition process. This two-stage laser process first uses hundred of lasers to compress the fusion fuel -- a mixture of deuterium and tritium in a spherical plastic capsule -- and then uses a high-intensity laser to rapidly heat the compressed fuel.