Of course they did.

Thanks, I really appreciate this. I had a fundamental misconception about how it would work and the time scales involved. I pictured the interior of the reactor being a continuous hot plasma, not having time to cool between shots.

I guess that changes my opinion to not actually impossible. I still think it is an unlikely path to commercial power.

It is essentially impossible for several reasons.

You need to position the target very precisely otherwise the shockwave is not symmetric and you get a fizzle instead of full power.

You also need to zap a target every few seconds to get a continuous output of energy. So perhaps dropping a frozen ball of DT ice every couple seconds and zapping when it reaches the right spot might work.

But try to imagine what the inside of the reactor would be like once burning started. It will be filled with hot plasma and hard radiation from a bunch of fusion reactions in the center. So there is no way to get a new pellet into the right spot. It will vaporize long before it can be ignited.

Even if you solve that you will have to fire your lasers into this hot plasma which will distort the incoming pulses in unpredictable ways. And if the lasers don't hit perfectly you will get a fizzle.

Next the targets that the lasers hit that produce the x-rays that compress the full need to be precisely machined and made of gold. They cost about $5,000 each to make. So operating costs will be an issue.

You could try a FOIA request and see if that gets you anywhere.