New peer reviewed paper from Avalanche Energy

[djnz01]

Avalanche CEO Robin Langtry posted this on LinkedIn (and presumably elsewhere): "First journal publication on the Orbitron, a novel hybrid electrostatic-magnetic fusion confinement scheme. It’s not easy to get a new fusion scheme published, a lot of time and hard work went into shepherding this through peer review. Thank you all who contributed and helped make this first paper even stronger!"

Link to paper: https://pubs.aip.org/aip/adv/article/14 ... ice-for-co

Most of the paper is over my head, but this seems like a very encouraging development, and their roadmap makes sense.

[Giorgio]

Thanks for posting this.

It does not bring new information from what I already new bu is very nice to see everything collected in a single paper.
And the new pictures makes it more easy to visualize the simplicity of the idea over which the Orbitron is based.

The biggest take out from the paper in my opinion are two:

1) A better explanation of the design of the HV feed through, and the confirmation that experiments are underway to reach the 300 kV target.
I will never stop repeating how much value this will have for any future fusion machine and how much groundbreaking the work of Dr. Borghei has been.

2) The ability to overcome the Brillouin density limit for the plasma, thanks to the high cathode voltage.
This has been only simulated so far, and is the make or break deal for the success of this tech.

They have of course other issues and concerns, but if they can prove that they can overcome the Brillouin limit while keeping a stable plasma at 100kV, than all other issues will most probably become secondary.

[usesbiggerwords]

Just finished reading the paper. Maybe this is a silly question, but how do you keep the ions from crashing into the cathode at the required KEs needed for fusion? Is that the breakthrough here, that the feedthroughs are such that the cathode voltage can be dialed high enough to prevent this?

[Giorgio]

Just finished reading the paper. Maybe this is a silly question, but how do you keep the ions from crashing into the cathode at the required KEs needed for fusion? Is that the breakthrough here, that the feedthroughs are such that the cathode voltage can be dialed high enough to prevent this?

The basic idea is not new. The way of operation is the same like any ion trap commercially available.
By injecting ions with enough speed the ions will be trapped in circular/elliptical orbits within the potential well formed between the inside cathode and the external anode.
Commercial Ion traps work on the 10/15 kV range with very low densities.
The main reason of using such a low voltage is to prevent dielectric breakage. Our previous technology was limited to voltages lower than 30kV for continuous use and less than 50 kV for intermittent/experimental/sporadic use.

So yes, their biggest breakthrough is that they have designed a HV feedthrough that can overcome this limit.
An higher potential well allows for ion with much higher angular momentum to be injected into the machine (while remaining trapped between the potential well in a stable orbit) so increasing the possibility of a successful fusion collision.

The second breakthrough (if proved in the experimental results) is that they hypothesize an "area of stability" for the ion density over the Bruillion limit, this will allow them to greatly increase the ion density into the machine, and thus increase the chances of fusion.

I hope that it solved your doubts.



Edited to fix typo.

[usesbiggerwords]

I hope that it solved your doubts.

It did clear up some things, so thank you. What wasn't mentioned in the paper, or maybe it was and I glossed over it, was whether or not the goal is a pulsed-mode or continuous operation. 300 kV is a lot of voltage to try and maintain over long spans time. We're talking long-distance transmission line levels of potential here. I would certainly like to see this succeed, as the design is simple and straightforward.

[Giorgio]

What wasn't mentioned in the paper, or maybe it was and I glossed over it, was whether or not the goal is a pulsed-mode or continuous operation. 300 kV is a lot of voltage to try and maintain over long spans time.

My information for now is that it will be a pulsed 5kWe reactor
Information on the MAKO-HVF are really tough to find as Moein Borghei is presenting his work at very few and selected conferences and publications, so I do not have much more to share than what is already publicly available.

That said, for what I understand and infer from his work, a 50/60 Hz repetition rate should be doable with his design.