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Fusion Energy
Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2022, only one design, an inertial confinement laser-driven fusion machine at the US National Ignition Facility, has conclusively produced a positive fusion energy gain factor, i.e. more power output than input. Fusion processes require fuel and a confined environment with sufficient temperature, pressure, and confinement time to create a plasma in which fusion can occur. The combination of these figures that results in a power-producing system is known as the Lawson criterion. In stars, the most common fuel is hydrogen, and gravity provides extremely long confinement times that reach the conditions needed for fusion e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The JET Magnetic Fusion Experiment In 1991
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ... in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protium (isotope)
Hydrogen (1H) has three naturally occurring isotopes, sometimes denoted , , and . and are stable, while has a half-life of years. Heavier isotopes also exist, all of which are synthetic and have a half-life of less than one zeptosecond (10−21 s). Of these, is the least stable, while is the most. Hydrogen is the only element whose isotopes have different names that remain in common use today: the (or hydrogen-2) isotope is deuterium and the (or hydrogen-3) isotope is tritium. The symbols D and T are sometimes used for deuterium and tritium. The IUPAC accepts the D and T symbols, but recommends using standard isotopic symbols ( and ) instead to avoid confusion in the alphabetic sorting of chemical formulas. The isotope , with no neutrons, is sometimes called protium. (During the early study of radioactivity, some other heavy radioactive isotopes were given names, but such names are rarely used today.) List of isotopes , - , , 1 , 0 , , colspan=3 align= ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetized Target Fusion
Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) is a fusion power concept that combines features of magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Like the magnetic approach, the fusion fuel is confined at lower density by magnetic fields while it is heated into a plasma. As with the inertial approach, fusion is initiated by rapidly squeezing the target to greatly increase fuel density and temperature. Although the resulting density is far lower than in ICF, it is thought that the combination of longer confinement times and better heat retention will let MTF operate, yet be easier to build. The term '' magneto-inertial fusion'' (MIF) is similar, but encompasses a wider variety of arrangements. The two terms are often applied interchangeably to experiments. Fusion concepts In fusion, lighter atoms are fused to make heavier atoms. The easiest fuels to do this with are isotopes of hydrogen. Generally these reactions take place inside a plasma. A plasma is a heated gas, wher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ITER
ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ''iter'' meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy by replicating, on Earth, the fusion processes of the Sun. Upon completion of construction of the main reactor and first plasma, planned for late 2025, it will be the world's largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment and the largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. It is being built next to the Cadarache facility in southern France. ITER will be the largest of more than 100 fusion reactors built since the 1950s, with ten times the plasma volume of any other tokamak operating today. The long-term goal of fusion research is to generate electricity. ITER's stated purpose is scientific research, and technological demonstration of a large fusion reactor, without electricity generation. ITER's goals are to achieve enough fusion to produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light which is ''coherent''. Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as laser cutting and lithography. Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances (collimation), enabling applications such as laser pointers and lidar (light detection and ranging). Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which allows them to emit light with a very narrow spectrum. Alternatively, temporal coherence can be used to produce ultrashort pulses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inertial Confinement Fusion
Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a fusion energy process that initiates nuclear fusion reactions by compressing and heating targets filled with thermonuclear fuel. In modern machines, the targets are small spherical pellets about the size of a pinhead typically containing a mixture of about 10 milligrams of deuterium 2H and tritium 3H. To compress and heat the fuel, energy is deposited in the outer layer of the target using high-energy beams of photons, electrons or ions, although almost all ICF devices used lasers. The beams heat the outer layer, which explodes outward. This produces a reaction force against the remainder of the target, which accelerates it inwards and compresses the fuel. This process also creates shock waves that travel inward through the target. Sufficiently powerful shock waves can compress and heat the fuel at the center such that fusion occurs. ICF is one of two major branches of fusion energy research, the other is magnetic confinement fusion. W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tokamak
A tokamak (; russian: токамáк; otk, 𐱃𐰸𐰢𐰴, Toḳamaḳ) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being developed to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. , it was the leading candidate for a practical fusion reactor. Tokamaks were initially conceptualized in the 1950s by Soviet physicists Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov, inspired by a letter by Oleg Lavrentiev. The first working tokamak was attributed to the work of Natan Yavlinsky on the T-1 in 1958. It had been demonstrated that a stable plasma equilibrium requires magnetic field lines that wind around the torus in a helix. Devices like the z-pinch and stellarator had attempted this, but demonstrated serious instabilities. It was the development of the concept now known as the safety factor (labelled ''q'' in mathematical notation) that guided tokamak development; by arrang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetic Mirror
A magnetic mirror, known as a magnetic trap (магнитный захват) in Russia and briefly as a pyrotron in the US, is a type of magnetic confinement device used in fusion power to trap high temperature plasma using magnetic fields. The mirror was one of the earliest major approaches to fusion power, along with the stellarator and z-pinch machines. In a classic magnetic mirror, a configuration of electromagnets is used to create an area with an increasing density of magnetic field lines at either end of the confinement area. Particles approaching the ends experience an increasing force that eventually causes them to reverse direction and return to the confinement area. This mirror effect will only occur for particles within a limited range of velocities and angles of approach, those outside the limits will escape, making mirrors inherently "leaky". An analysis of early fusion devices by Edward Teller pointed out that the basic mirror concept is inherently unstable. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stellarator
A stellarator is a plasma device that relies primarily on external magnets to confine a plasma. Scientists researching magnetic confinement fusion aim to use stellarator devices as a vessel for nuclear fusion reactions. The name refers to the possibility of harnessing the power source of the stars, such as the Sun. It is one of the earliest fusion power devices, along with the z-pinch and magnetic mirror. The stellarator was invented by American scientist Lyman Spitzer of Princeton University in 1951, and much of its early development was carried out by his team at what became the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Lyman's Model A began operation in 1953 and demonstrated plasma confinement. Larger models followed, but these demonstrated poor performance, losing plasma at rates far worse than theoretical predictions. By the early 1960s, any hope of quickly producing a commercial machine faded, and attention turned to studying the fundamental theory of high-energy plasm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Z-pinch
In fusion power research, the Z-pinch (zeta pinch) is a type of plasma confinement system that uses an electric current in the plasma to generate a magnetic field that compresses it (see pinch). These systems were originally referred to simply as pinch or Bennett pinch (after Willard Harrison Bennett), but the introduction of the θ-pinch (theta pinch) concept led to the need for clearer, more precise terminology. The name refers to the direction of the current in the devices, the Z-axis on a normal three-dimensional graph. Any machine that causes a pinch effect due to current running in that direction is correctly referred to as a Z-pinch system, and this encompasses a wide variety of devices used for an equally wide variety of purposes. Early uses focused on fusion research in donut-shaped tubes with the Z-axis running down the inside the tube, while modern devices are generally cylindrical and used to generate high-intensity x-ray sources for the study of nuclear weapons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plasma-facing Material
In nuclear fusion power research, the plasma-facing material (or materials) (PFM) is any material used to construct the plasma-facing components (PFC), those components exposed to the plasma within which nuclear fusion occurs, and particularly the material used for the lining the first wall or divertor region of the reactor vessel. Plasma-facing materials for fusion reactor designs must support the overall steps for energy generation, these include: #Generating heat through fusion, #Capturing heat in the first wall, #Transferring heat at a faster rate than capturing heat. #Generating electricity. In addition PFMs have to operate over the lifetime of a fusion reactor vessel by handling the harsh environmental conditions, such as: # Ion bombardment causing physical and chemical sputtering and therefore erosion. # Ion implantation causing displacement damage and chemical composition changes # High-heat fluxes (e.g. 10 MW/m^2) due to ELMS and other transients. # Limited tritium co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons behave similarly within the nucleus, and each has a mass of approximately one atomic mass unit, they are both referred to as nucleons. Their properties and interactions are described by nuclear physics. Protons and neutrons are not elementary particles; each is composed of three quarks. The chemical properties of an atom are mostly determined by the configuration of electrons that orbit the atom's heavy nucleus. The electron configuration is determined by the charge of the nucleus, which is determined by the number of protons, or atomic number. The number of neutrons is the neutron number. Neutrons do not affect the electron configuration, but the sum of atomic and neutron numbers is the mass of the nucleus. Atoms of a chemical element t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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