Inertial electrostatic confinement, or IEC, is a class of fusion power devices that use electric fields to confine the plasma rather than the more common approach using magnetic fields found in magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) designs. Most IEC devices directly accelerate their fuel to fusion conditions, thereby avoiding energy losses seen during the longer heating stages of MCF devices. In theory, this makes them more suitable for using alternative aneutronic fusion fuels, which offer a number of major practical benefits and makes IEC devices one of the more widely studied approaches to fusion.
As the negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions in the plasma move in different directions in an electric field, the field has to be arranged in some fashion so that the two particles remain close together. Most IEC designs achieve this by pulling the electrons or ions across a potential well, beyond which the potential drops and the particles continue to move due to their inertia. Fusion occurs in this lower-potential area when ions moving in different directions collide. Because the motion provided by the field creates the energy levels needed for fusion, not random collisions with the rest of the fuel, the bulk of the plasma does not have to be hot and the systems as a whole work at much lower temperatures and energy levels than MCF devices.
One of the simpler IEC devices is the fusor, which consists of two concentric metal wire spherical grids. When the grids are charged to a high voltage, the fuel gas ionizes. The field between the two then accelerates the fuel inward, and when it passes the inner grid the field drops and the ions continue inward toward the center. If they impact with another ion they may undergo fusion. If they do not, they travel out of the reaction area into the charged area again, where they are re-accelerated inward. Overall the physical process is similar to the colliding beam fusion, although beam devices are linear instead of spherical.
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The polywell is a design for a fusion reactor based on two ideas: heating ions by concentrating (-) charge to accelerate the ions and trapping a diamagnetic plasma inside a cusp field. This kind of plasma trap is based on the idea that a plasma will create its own magnetic field that rejects the outside field. That is not common behavior for a fusing plasma. A similar trapping concept was tested by the Lockheed-Martin high beta fusion reactor team, which tried to hold a plasma in a similar way.
A fusor is a device that uses an electric field to heat ions to conditions that allow nuclear fusion. The machine induces a voltage between two metal cages, inside a vacuum. Positive ions fall down this voltage drop, building up speed. If they collide in the center, they can fuse. This is one kind of an inertial electrostatic confinement device – a branch of fusion research. A Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor is the most common type of fusor. This design came from work by Philo T. Farnsworth in 1964 and Robert L.
Neutron generators are neutron source devices which contain compact linear particle accelerators and that produce neutrons by fusing isotopes of hydrogen together. The fusion reactions take place in these devices by accelerating either deuterium, tritium, or a mixture of these two isotopes into a metal hydride target which also contains deuterium, tritium or a mixture of these isotopes. Fusion of deuterium atoms (D + D) results in the formation of a helium-3 ion and a neutron with a kinetic energy of approximately 2.
This course completes the knowledge in plasma physics that students have acquired in the previous two courses, with a discussion of different applications, in the fields of magnetic confinement and co
Learn the basics of plasma, one of the fundamental states of matter, and the different types of models used to describe it, including fluid and kinetic.
Learn the basics of plasma, one of the fundamental states of matter, and the different types of models used to describe it, including fluid and kinetic.
The performance of magnetic confinement fusion devices, such as tokamaks, is strongly correlated to the phenomena that occur in the boundary region of the plasma core that faces the wall of the device. The dominant cross-field transport mechanisms from the ...
The SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART) under commissioning at the University of Seville, Spain, aims to explore confinement properties and possible advantages in confinement for compact/spherical tokamaks operating at negative vs. positive triangularity. T ...
Bristol2024
Nuclear fusion presents a promising clean energy source to mitigate future energy crises, with magnetic confinement fusion well-positioned to provide a baseload scenario to power future reactors. The unmitigated power exhaust of such reactors threatens its ...