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Concept
Demon core
Summary
The demon core was a spherical subcritical mass of plutonium in diameter, manufactured during World War II by the United States nuclear weapon development effort, the Manhattan Project, as a fissile core for an early atomic bomb.
The core was prepared for shipment as part of the third nuclear weapon to be used in Japan, but when Japan surrendered, the core was retained at Los Alamos for testing and potential later use.
It was involved in two criticality accidents at the Los Alamos Laboratory on August 21, 1945, and May 21, 1946, each resulting in a fatality. Both experiments were designed to demonstrate how close the core was to criticality with a tamper, but in each case, the core was accidentally placed into a critical configuration. Physicists Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin suffered acute radiation syndrome (ARS) and died soon after, while others present in the lab were also exposed.
The core was melted down in summer 1946 and the material recycled for use in other cores.
The demon core (like the second core used in the bombing of Nagasaki) was, when assembled, a solid sphere measuring in diameter. It consisted of three parts: two plutonium-gallium hemispheres and a ring, designed to keep neutron flux from "jetting" out of the joined surface between the hemispheres during implosion. The core of the device used in the Trinity Test at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in July did not have such a ring.
The refined plutonium was shipped from the Hanford Site in Washington state to the Los Alamos Laboratory; an inventory document dated August 30 shows Los Alamos had expended "HS-1, 2, 3, 4; R-1" (the components of the Trinity and Nagasaki bombs) and had in its possession "HS-5, 6; R-2", finished and in the hands of quality control. Material for "HS-7, R-3" was in the Los Alamos metallurgy section, and would also be ready by September 5 (it is not certain whether this date allowed for the unmentioned "HS-8s fabrication to complete the fourth core).
Official source
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