CONICAL TARGETS AND PINCH CONFINEMENT FOR INERTIAL FUSION

Citation
Pm. Velarde et al., CONICAL TARGETS AND PINCH CONFINEMENT FOR INERTIAL FUSION, Laser and particle beams, 14(4), 1996, pp. 665-678
Citations number
24
Categorie Soggetti
Physics, Applied
Journal title
ISSN journal
02630346
Volume
14
Issue
4
Year of publication
1996
Pages
665 - 678
Database
ISI
SICI code
0263-0346(1996)14:4<665:CTAPCF>2.0.ZU;2-K
Abstract
Conical microducts and minithrottles can be used to accelerate micrope llets of fusionable fuel up to very high speeds (similar to 10(8) cm/s ). The central collision of two pellets flying in opposite directions can produce a hot plasma where fusion reactions are triggered. The mai n drawback of this scheme is the short confinement time provided by th e external guide tube (throttle). To obtain high yield, an extra force of confinement is advisable. In this paper, the performance of fuel i mplosions within conical targets and the effect of ultrashort magnetic fields and pinch forces are analyzed. Although very high currents are needed to stretch the confinement time, modern technologies based on pulse-power machines and fast discharges induced by ultrashort lasers can provide a solution to this problem.