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Nonlinear force driven plasma blocks igniting solid density hydrogen boron: Laser fusion energy without radioactivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2009

H. Hora ,
G.H. Miley ,
N. Azizi ,
B. Malekynia ,
M. Ghoranneviss  and
X.T. He
H. Hora*
Affiliation:
Department of Theoretical Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
G.H. Miley
Affiliation:
Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiation Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
N. Azizi
Affiliation:
Plasma Physics Research Centre, Islamic Azad University, Tehran-Poonak, Iran
B. Malekynia
Affiliation:
Plasma Physics Research Centre, Islamic Azad University, Tehran-Poonak, Iran
M. Ghoranneviss
Affiliation:
Plasma Physics Research Centre, Islamic Azad University, Tehran-Poonak, Iran
X.T. He
Affiliation:
Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, Bejing, China
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: H. Hora, Department of Theoretical Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia. E-mail: h.hora@unsw.edu.au
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Abstract

Energy production by laser driven fusion energy is highly matured by spherical compression and ignition of deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel. An alternative scheme is the fast ignition where petawatt (PW)-picosecond (ps) laser pulses are used. A significant anomaly was measured and theoretically analyzed with very clean PW-ps laser pulses for avoiding relativistic self focusing. This permits a come-back of the side-on ignition scheme of uncompressed solid DT, which is in essential contrast to the spherical compression scheme. The conditions of side-on ignition thresholds needed exorbitantly high energy flux densities E*. These conditions are now in reach by using PW-ps laser pulses to verify side-on ignition for DT. Generalizing this to side-on igniting solid state density proton-Boron-11 (HB11) arrives at the surprising result that this is one order of magnitude more difficult than the DT fusion. This is in contrast to the well known impossibility of igniting HB11 by spherical laser compression and may offer fusion energy production with exclusion of neutron generation and nuclear radiation effects with a minimum of heat pollution in power stations and application for long mission space propulsion.

Keywords

Block ignitionFast ignitionFusion without neutronsHydrogen-Boron fusionLaser driven fusion energyPatawatt lasersSide-on ignitionSkin layer acceleration
Type
Research Article
Information
Laser and Particle Beams , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 491 - 496
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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