ENHANCED DIFFUSION AND ISOTOPE EXTRACTION DRIVEN BY ION-CYCLOTRON SURFACE-WAVES IN A RIPPLED MAGNETIC-FIELD

The possibility of using ponderomotive forces for isotope extraction i s discussed in this paper. The isotope to be enriched is resonantly he ated to high perpendicular temperature (T-perpendicular to approximate to 100 eV) by ion-cyclotron surface waves, to avoid strong collisions with the background plasma in a mirror trap with rippled magnetic fie ld. The magnitude of the ripple, delta = Delta B/B, is chosen so as to avoid the cyclotron resonance of other isotopes but high enough to ca use a substantial increase in the cyclotron dissipation of resonant sp ecies. Substantial enhancement of the outward transport of the enriche d species is considered by ponderomotive force of the surface (or fast ) waves with the poloidal mode number m = +1. An explicit example for the separation of neon isotopes (Ne-21 or Ne-22) is discussed in detai l.