Issues with coupling efficiency, beam illumination symmetry and Rayleigh Taylor (RT) instability are discussed for spherical heavy-ion-beam-driven targets with and without hohlraums. Efficient coupling of heavy ion beams to compress direct-drive inertial fusion targets without hohlraums is found to require ion range increasing several-fold during the drive pulse. One-dimensional implosion calculations using the LASNEX ICF target physics code shows the ion range increasing four-fold during the drive pulse to keep ion energy deposition following closely behind the imploding ablation front, resulting in high coupling efficiencies (shell kinetic energy/incident beam energy of 16 to 18%). Ways to increase beam ion range while mitigating Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities are discussed for future work
