Magneto-inertial fusion approaches differ in the degree of magnetic organization present in the initial target, as well as the nature and speed of the imploding liner.
The MIF concept traces its history to comments by Andrei Sakharov in the 1950s, who noted that a magnetic field in a foil could be compressed and could, in theory, reach millions of Gauss.
The concept was not picked up until the 1960s, when Evgeny Velikhov at the Kurchatov Institute began small-scale experiments using metal foils that were imploded by an external magnetic field.
Shanny, believing Velikhov was saying spinning would address Rayleigh-Taylor problems, performed the calculations and found that it did indeed stabilize these instabilities.
Additional metal would then be forced into cylinder the using pistons or similar means, causing the opening in the center to close and the plasma to rapidly collapse.