Fusion energy without radioactivity: laser ignition of solid hydrogen–boron (11) fuel

Abstract

The advent of ultra-high power lasers allows laser power levels that are about 1000 times the power of all the power stations in the USA. This opens the way to new approaches for inertial confinement fusions (ICF) that in turn can drastically reduce the laser input energy needed to achieve practical ICF power. The specific approach discussed here involves inducing a fusion burn wave by laser-driven impact of a relatively large block of plasma on the outside of a solid density fusion target. This new method is specifically selected to enable the extremely attractive, but demanding, neutron-free proton-B-11 fusion that potentially can lead to the long sought goal of an ultra ''clean'' fusion power plant.

Avalanche boron fusion by laser picosecond block ignition with magnetic trapping for clean and economic reactor

“…When instead of the DT crosssections, those for the much more difficult case for HB11 were used, in the same computations, a most unexpected and surprising result was achieved. Instead of the earlier known extremely more difficult ignition compared with DT, the threshold E * for HB11 was of nearly the same value [6,16,37] . This can be seen in Figure 2 where in the same way as calculated before by Chu [32] , the maximum temperature of the reacting plasma depending on the time t after the ps long initiation process was calculated.…”

“…Compressing DT to the order of the thousand times of solid state has been verified [5] but the level of more than hundred times higher densities may be impossible. The enormous difficulties can be overcome by using a nonthermal ignition scheme [6] . On top the recent measurement of several kilotesla magnetic fields [7] has to be involved but key ingredient on the way to a boron laser fusion reactor is the experimental discovery [8,9] of the avalanche reaction of HB11 [1,10] to open a radical new solution for fusion energy.…”

Distinguished celebration for Professor Georg H. Miley by the University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA

“…Miley had a key function to sort out the different options of volume ignition with spherical compression and thermal ignition as in the next solution with NIF at Livermore (Glenzer et al, 2011) versus alternatives as fast ignition where the very fast interaction in the picosecond range may overcome the complications of complex systems as mentioned by Teller (2001) or Lord May (1972). The solution with side-on ignition of p-B 11 (Hora et al, 2010) was described in an interview with the Royal Chemical Society of Chemistry in London by one of the leaders at the NIF experiment at Livermore, Steve Haan, that this "has the potential to be the best route to fusion energy" (Li, 2010). For the future steps, it may be interesting to consider Miley's electron beam excited KrF lasers as used in the large NIKE laser at the Naval Research Laboratory (Obenschain et al, 2006) with short pulse techniques (Földes and Szatmari, 2008).…”

Prompt gamma ray diagnostics and enhanced hadron-therapy using neutron-free nuclear reactions

“…10 B (p,α) 7 Be (4) where the final result is a prompt gamma-ray emission at 429 keV. [32][33][34][35] For a full explanation of the gamma spectrum obtained in the simulations for the B11 sample, the following series of nuclear reactions have been identified: 11 B (p,2n) 10 C, followed by a β+ decay of 10 C, thus populating the 10 B* exited state and finally emitting a gamma-ray at 718 keV.…”

“…For these reasons the protonBoron nuclear fusion reaction has been actively investigated by several research groups for energy production. [7][8][9] In the last decade a renewed interest on this topic has been shown through the possibility to trigger such nuclear reactions by using high power pulsed laser interacting with solid B-enriched targets. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Charged energetic particles are routinely used in medicine, in particular in cancer therapy.…”