Fusion Message Board

In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.

Subject: Re: Fusor uses for microwaves:
Date: Aug 20, 3:14 pm
Poster: Jim Lux

On Aug 20, 3:14 pm, Jim Lux wrote:


> Why such low energies? You get real boosts in the size of the fusion region and the number of events by driving the energies much higher. If you carefully phase match several antennae, you could prolly crank peak voltages into the 100s of kV. Without the problems of HV DC...
>

Good idea here.. This technique, in a slightly different form, is used in high power TEA lasers. The idea is to generate a HV pulse that is short enough that it is over before an arc can form. Typical pulse durations would be in the few tens of nSec range. So, if you do a series of pulses, spaced 10-20 nSec apart, what do you have? Why 50-100 MHz RF. The only hangup with RF, as opposed to fast pulses, might be the relatively slow rise time of the RF waveform, which promotes the development of an arc. You might want a HV RF charging supply with a breakover gap to sharpen the pulse up.

As the previous writer suggests, getting 100 kV with RF is pretty easy, since transformers at high frequency are small and efficient.