AbstractThe choice of target coating and hohlraum wall materials is among the most critical decisions to be made for inertial fusion energy (IFE) designs. Gold and gold/gadolinium have long been considered to be the coating and hohlraum wall materials of choice for direct drive (DD) and indirect drive (ID) targets, respectively, offering high target performance and low beam energy losses. More recently, a variety of other materials have been considered, including W, Pb, Pt, Pd, and Ag for the DD target coating and Au, W, Pb, Hg, Ta, Cs, and Hf for the hohlraum wall of the ID target. The choice of the coating/hohlraum material is a tradeoff between the target design elements such as safety, target physics, economics, etc. We identified the key safety issues and have investigated the neutron-induced irradiation effects of the candidate coating/hohlraum materials using the radiation chamber conditions of the ARIES-IFE dry wall concept. The safety requirements have specific impacts in terms of the coating/hohlraum materials choice.