An accelerated micro-foil is used to ignite a pre-compressed cylindrical shell containing deuterium–tritium fuel.The well-known shock wave ignition criterion and a novel criterion based on heat wave ignition are developed in this work.It is shown that for heat ignition very high impact velocities are required.It is suggested that a multi-petawatt laser can accelerate a micro-foil to relativistic velocities in a very short time duration(picosecond)of the laser pulse.The cylindrical geometry suggested here for the fast ignition approach has the advantage of geometrically separating the nanosecond lasers that compress the target from the picosecond laser that accelerates the foil.The present model suggests that nuclear fusion by micro-foil impact ignition could be attained with currently existing technology. An accelerated micro-foil is used to ignite a pre-compressed cylindrical shell containing deuterium-tritium fuel. The well-known shock wave ignition criterion and a novel criterion based on heat wave ignition are developed in this work. It is shown that for heat ignition very high impact velocities are required. It is suggested that a multi-petawatt laser can accelerate a micro-foil to relativistic velocities in a very short time duration (picosecond) of the laser pulse. The cylindrical geometry suggested for the fast ignition approach has the advantage of geometrically separating the nanosecond lasers that compress the target from the picosecond laser that accelerates the foil. present present model suggests that nuclear fusion by micro-foil impact ignition could be attained with currently existing technology.