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: High pressure D2 fusion
Date: Oct 26, 11:49 pm
Poster: Dave Cooper

On Oct 26, 11:49 pm, Dave Cooper wrote:

>What about using a very(!) short pulse of voltage (not what's going on here) that doesn't allow a glow discharge or arc to develop (which takes some time...). Something like a high reprate transmission line pulse former? Some of the BIG (multi kW) TEA lasers use a technique like this to excite the gas at high pressures, without forming an arc (which would quickly destroy the laser). I seem to recall one (the researcher's name was Daugherty, or something like that) that ran multi kJ pulses with something like 100 kV on the electrodes. They used a preionizing UV discharge to get many ions in the volume before hitting it with the pulse.
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There may be something to creating a column of ionized gas molecules with UV radiation, and then applying the accelerating potential to move the ions. But, if the pulse is very short, sub nsec, it would seem the individual ions will get only a miniscule velocity boost, despite the fact that the charge pulse will still pass through.

However,if the pulse were quite long, and held its potential, the sheer volume of charge in motion, would create a conducting channel. The big question appears to be whether the ion mobility can remain high enough to acquire 20 kev.

Dave Cooper