Picosecond-petawatt laser-block ignition for avalanche fusion of boron by ultrahigh acceleration and ultrahigh magnetic fields

9th International Conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications

Hora, H.^1 ; Lalousis, P.^2 ; Giuffrida, L.^3 ; Margarone, D.^3 ; Korn, G.^3 ; Eliezer, S.^4,5 ; Miley, G.H.^6 ; Moustaizis, S.^7 ; Mourou, G.^8 ; Barty, C.P.J.^9

Department of Theoretical Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney

2052, Australia^1

Institute of Electronic Structure and Lasers FORTH, Heraklion, Greece^2

ELI-Beamline Project, Inst. Physics, ASCR, PALS Center, Prague, Czech Republic^3

Institute of Nuclear Fusion, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain^4

Soreq Research Center, Yavne, Israel^5

Deptartment of Nucluclear Plasma, Radiological Engineering University of Illinois, Urbana

IL, United States^6

Technical University Crete, Laboratory of Matter Structure and Laser Physics, Chania, Greece^7

DAER-IZEST, Ecole Polytechnique, Route de Saclay, Palaiseau Cedex

91128, France^8

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore

CA, United States^9

关键词: Clean energy sources;    Nanosecond laser pulse;    Nonlinear (ponderomotive) force;    Nuclear radiations;    Secondary reactions;    Thermal compressions;    Ultra-high accelerations;    Ultra-high magnetic fields;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/717/1/012024/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/717/1/012024

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Fusion energy from reacting hydrogen (protons) with the boron isotope 11 (HB11) resulting in three stable helium nuclei, is without problem of nuclear radiation in contrast to DT fusion. But the HB11 reaction driven by nanosecond laser pulses with thermal compression and ignition by lasers is extremely difficult. This changed radically when irradiation with picosecond laser pulses produces a non-thermal plasma block ignition with ultrahigh acceleration. This uses the nonlinear (ponderomotive) force to surprizingly resulting in same thresholds as DT fusion even under pessimistic assumption of binary reactions. After evaluation of reactions trapped cylindrically by kilotesla magnetic fields and using the measured highly increased HB11 fusion gains for the proof of an avalanche of the three alphas in secondary reactions, possibilities for an absolutely clean energy source at comptitive costs were concluded.