Sol-gel technology has been applied with considerable success in the production of high quality hollow glass microspheres(HGMs)for inertial confinement fusion(ICF)research in China.The specifications of HGMs

such as glass composition

diameter

wall thickness

sphericity

wall thickness uniformity

surface finish

strength and gas permeability

must meet the stringent requirements imposed by ICF targets.Meeting all of these sometimes conflicting specifications has been the driving force of the research in the fabrication of HGMs for ICF target.In this work

various technologies used for fabricating high quality HGMs were compared in terms of their advantages and disadvantages

and the basic principles of the preparation of dried-gel particles/microspheres by sol-gel technology and the transformation process from the dried-gel particles/microspheres to glass shells were further summarized.The progress in the fabrication of HGMs for ICF targets by dried-gel method over the past thirty years was presented.An overview of advances and technical bottlenecks in the control of glass composition

diagnostic element doping

diameter

wall thickness

surface finish

strength

gas permeability and batch uniformity were reviewed.Finally

the future research needs of producing HGMs for ICF targets by sol-gel technology and their possible solutions were also discussed.