Article on laser driven pB11 fusion

[crowberry]

Heinrich Hora has written an article called Clean boron fusion using extreme laser pulses where he reports on simulations to study laser driven pB11 fusion and some experimental results too.

http://spie.org/x114732.xml

[JohnP]

This is interesting. Aside from the challenges of direct conversion though, I wonder about the effects of repeated 10,000 tesla magnetic pulses on any nearby metal...

[rcain]

Hi,

Haven't been on here for a while. Came across the following interesting papers on arxiv by Hora, Miley, et al, on HB11 laser fusion. Thought you folks might find them a good read. Seem to be on the same topic as this thread & didn't find them posted elsewhere. Happy reading.

Laser boron fusion reactor with picosecond petawatt block ignition
Heinrich Hora, Shalom Eliezer, Jiaxiang Wang, Georg Korn, Noaz Nissim, Yanxia Xu, Paraskevas Lalousis, Goetz Kirchhoff, George H. Miley
(Submitted on 29 Jul 2017)

For developing a laser boron fusion reactor driven by picosecond laser pulses of more than 30 petawatts power, advances are reported about computations for the plasma block generation by the dielectric explosion of the interaction. Further results are about the direct drive ignition mechanism by a single laser pulse without the problems of spherical irradiation. For the sufficiently large stopping lengths of the generated alpha particles in the plasma results from other projects can be used.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.09722


Extreme laser pulses for possible development of boron fusion power reactors for clean and lasting energy
H. Hora, S. Eliezer, G. J. Kirchhoff, G. Korn, P. Lalousis, G. H. Miley, S. Moustaizis
(Submitted on 17 Mar 2017)

Extreme laser pulses driving non-equilibrium processes in high density plasmas permit an increase of the fusion of hydrogen with the boron isotope 11 by nine orders of magnitude of the energy gains above the classical values. This is the result of initiating the reaction by non-thermal ultrahigh acceleration of plasma blocks by the nonlinear (ponderomotive) force of the laser field, in addition to the avalanche reaction that has now been experimentally and theoretically manifested. The design of a very compact fusion power reactor is scheduled to produce then environmentally fully clean and inexhaustible generation of energy at profitably low costs. The reaction within a volume of cubic millimetres during a nanosecond can only be used for controlled power generation.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.07224

PS. recent news from ladajo on EMC2 News thread sounds mighty tantilising. Can't wait to hear more of Polywell. Glad to see it's still bubbling/spinning away.

[Carl White]

They've set up a company to develop this:

https://www.hb11.energy

[kurt9]

This is not your typical laser fusion setup.

These guys are using CPA lasers. CPA lasers are of the very short pulses generated by a method similar to that of the Wakefield technique used in those "table-top" particle accelerators that have recently been developed. So this might have a chance of working.

[crowberry]

Jonathan Tennenbaum has written a series of articles which are rather detailed on the idea of hydrogen-boron fusion proposed by professor Heinrich Hora. Some of the material is probably very familiar for readers of TP, but the articles give a very nice general and accessible introduction to this interesting fusion concept.

• Part 1: Hydrogen-boron fusion could be a dream come true
  https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/hydrogen- ... come-true/
• Part 2: Nuclear power's ray of hope: hydrogen-boron fusion
  https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/nuclear-p ... on-fusion/
• Part 3: Nuclear power: Lessons from the hydrogen bomb
  https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/lessons-f ... ogen-bomb/
• Part 4: Fusion power enters world of `extreme light'
  https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/fusion-po ... eme-light/
• Part 5: Lighting the nuclear fusion fire
  https://asiatimes.com/2020/05/lighting- ... sion-fire/
• Part 6: How to build a hydrogen-boron fusion reactor
  https://asiatimes.com/2020/05/how-to-bu ... n-reactor/
• Meet the father of the hydrogen-boron laser fusion reactor
  https://asiatimes.com/2020/05/meet-the- ... n-reactor/

[crowberry]

HB11 has raised $4.8 millon:
https://www.businessnewsaustralia.com/a ... raise.html

[bennmann]

Was researching this one over lunch and the real benefit to this design is no vacuum is needed; the fusion is achievable in atmosphere.

If diode-pumped lasers achieve a few more advances outside this research, the design also benefit drastically. 50 joule laser math (per the paper 2019) is pretty much consumer grade... May have it's own regulatory problems akin to firearms at that point...

[kurt9]

Was researching this one over lunch and the real benefit to this design is no vacuum is needed; the fusion is achievable in atmosphere.

That ought to drop the capital cost of the fully developed system. Depending on the mass of the equipment setup, it might make aircraft engines based on this technology possible.

[Giorgio]

Last I checked (a few years ago), the power level and time pulse needed to test the proposed fusion route (30KJ at picoseconds levels) was still quite far from what was available even with the best Chirped Pulse lasers.

.

[Skipjack]

There seem to be several labs now capable of testing this. They are going to the Texas Petawatt Laser Facility for tests this year (or are planning to anyway).

[Giorgio]

According their website, The Texas Petawatt Laser is a 140 J - 140 fs. Several order of magnitude far from what needed, in both, duration and power.
I am not sure about what they plan to experiment with, but I hope they will share it because the idea itself is not half bad, but is also plenty of potential pitfalls and I am curious to see how they plan to solve them.

[Skipjack]

Hmm, this is what they are saying in this paper:
Lasers for the reactor for producing 30 kJ laser pulses of picosecond duration with a sequence of one shot per second are close to the present technology should be available within few years. At the moment [69] lasers with 10 kJ pulses of 0.17 ps duration and operation of one shot per minute are available or 1 kJ pulses of the same duration at 10 Hz emission.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1704/1704.07224.pdf
Not sure why they would go to the Texas Petawatt Laser facility, if this is not the right kind of laser.

[Giorgio]

That was a good hint. I made few searches and I found that the The Texas Petawatt Laser (TPW) has been planning an upgrade since several years and now is implementing it in these months.
The new facility will be called "Texas Relativistic Intensity Ultrafast Multi-beam Plasma science Facility, or TRIUMPF", it will be composed by the old Texas Petawatt Laser and 2 additional lasers, all the 3 synchronized together.
https://cheds.ph.utexas.edu/triumpf

I could not find any clear report about what will be the final specifications of the new facility, but (in my personal opinion) an upgrade to the TPW does not seem enough to reach the levels mentioned in the paper you reported. Still, this is all very interesting.

[Skipjack]

Looks like HB11 Fusion is getting some more help:
https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/fusi ... b11-energy