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This Defense Intelligence Agency reference document, dated 10 March 2010, covers inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion. It was produced in FY 2009 under the DIA's Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) program. The report focuses on work at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and reviews IEC basics, experiments, theory and applications such as neutron sources, explosives detection and space propulsion. It concludes by proposing a breakeven experiment for p-11B fusion that uses a hydrogen plasma simulation.
“The Advance”12 pages
UNCLASSIFIED,' fF&II. lilFFll!l*L 1!1!!11!! 911L I found that there is an optimum voltage in terms of a maximum IEC cathode current. Ions supplied by the magnetron ion source are essential to maintain the hybrid (glow and magnetron) discharge under low gas pressure conditions. The reason for this voltage limit is not clear. Unfortunately this effect limits the cathode voltage despite the need for high voltage for neutron production near the peak energy of the fusion cross section. Thus this issue deserves more study to optimize use of a hybrid magnetron source IEC operation. Still the design worked reasonably well for the initial mine detection experiments. Unfortunately, the project was terminated prematurely due to financial constraints, so information on optimization possibility remains incomplete. The design of the ion source also depends on the ion species being injected. Sources described thus far have focused on deuterium or, in some cases on tritium. However, workers at the University of Wisconsin (U. Wisc.) have had a great interest in 3He reactions (both D- 3He and 3He-3 He), so have developed a gun specialized to 3He ion production (Reference 2.8). To maximize the ion current, a Helicon source was selected since Helicons are well known for production of very high density plasmas from which high ion currents can be extracted. This source is illustrated in Figure 2.6 and discussed in Reference 2.8. They state that this source has produced steady-state ion currents of 10 mA into IEC systems with background gas pressures as low as 200 μtorr. Figure 2.6. 3 He Ion Source for Use in 3He- 3He Fusion Rate Studies at the U of Wisconsin These developments are aimed at observation of the 3He-3 He reaction in an IEC device. Scoping calculations of beam-background fusion rates predict that a 3 He- 3 He reaction product spectrum should be distinctly observable in an IEC operating below 200 kV. 19 UNCLASSIFIED/ 1UiOAt OFFIGIPk IP&'i Ollk¥
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 72 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.