An alternative is Inertial confinement fusion (ICF), in which fusion of nuclei is initiated by heating and compressing a fuel target, typically in the form of a pellet containing deuterium and tritium contained in a device called a hohlraum (hollow space or cavity) using an extremely powerful laser.
When this beam struck a target of erbium deuteride, the team detected neutrons coming from the target with precisely the energy expected if they were generated by the nuclear fusion of two deuterium nuclei.