Ion guns and thick targets.

For the design and construction details of ion guns, necessary for more advanced designs and lower vacuums.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Ion guns and thick targets.

Post by Richard Hull »

Ivan is correct. U of W found that the embedded target fusion in a fusor lagged far behind the IEC transparent grid equivalent.

I have that report printed out and in my library.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
SteveHansen
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Re: Ion guns and thick targets.

Post by SteveHansen »

Hi Larry,

I was just browsing through some older posts and I noticed your reference to the Gow & Ruby ionizer but I was perplexed by the subsequent comments on filaments, RF, etc. Is this ionizer the the simple cold cathode ring magnet device that forms the anode region or something else?

Very good info on the thick Ti target.

Steve
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Doug Coulter
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Re: Ion guns and thick targets.

Post by Doug Coulter »

Thanks for noticing this and bumping it up Steve - it's relevant to what I'm doing myself now.
Other sources I have indicate he should have been more patient and that neutron yield would have gone up substantially with a couple more days of pushing D into the target.

The fast-neutron guys use thin targets for a completely different reason. They want the reaction energy to be tight, with few low energy stragglers that have lost energy penetrating the target with no reaction yet. And for better cooling. For just making neutrons, a thicker target should be OK as long as you don't hydrate it so well it turns to dust - the other advantage of a thin target is a substrate that rejects hydrogen and doesn't get brittle.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
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Re: Ion guns and thick targets.

Post by SteveHansen »

Most of the use of self replenishing targets I believe is in sealed neutron tubes where you also don't want a lot of "sponge" to soak up the deuterium or tritium. There's already enough that they need to have reservoirs, usually a zirconium filament, that can be heated to evolve the isotope and keep the tube at the correct pressure.

While I don't have anything set up for neutron production at the moment, might rethink that situation a bit. Got my hands pretty full with pulse devices and educational stuff.

Steve
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Re: Ion guns and thick targets.

Post by Frank Sanns »

Larry had a medical situation back a number of years ago so he he no longer has the ability to post on here and last I heard, he did not have access to read it either.

Frank
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: Ion guns and thick targets.

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Very sorry to hear that. Thanks for letting me know.

Steve
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Richard Hull
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Re: Ion guns and thick targets.

Post by Richard Hull »

D embeds in all metals as hydrogen loves metal lattices. In a fusor, there is embedment in both walls and inner grid. Thus, the fusor does do target fusion among its many and varied fusion modalities. It may rate as one of the most numerous varigated fusion event devices known!

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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