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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//FOR OFFICIO k YEE &•lklf region is essential to decrease the center potential and consequently allow incoming beam ions to penetrate into the core region. In the DaIEC, it is possible to assist this effect by an external control of the centerline potential by applying a bias voltage to the dipole coil. In the UIUC experiment this was done by applying a voltage to a small copper ring inserted in the core of the dipole magnet. The increase in the electron density with a small center line bias applied was about 30 percent while the applied voltage to the dipole structure was ~3 percent of the discharge voltage. The present setup prevented the use of larger applied voltages which could further improve neutralization, but these results still demonstrate the basic concept of dipole focusing with coil bias control. Figure 3.6 shows how the electron density changes with increasing magnetic field measured at various coil biases in the current experiment. It is found that electron density increases about 17 times more than that of non-magnetic field measurement. So far, this increase is very close to our theoretical estimations. Electron density vs B-field 25mTorr I.00E+0S 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 B-field strength (Gauss) I--- Ground -+- Vc=-lOOV ----r- Vc=+IOOV I Figure 3.6. Electron Density vs. Dipole Magnet Field Strength at 25mTorr, 20mA The next section turns to some very interesting diagnostic studies of IEC devices, including a jet thruster configuration, done by Joe Khachan's group at the University of Sydney, Australia. KHACHAN'S STUDIES AT U OF SYDNEY Joe Khachan's IEC research at the University of Sydney has stressed studies of optical emission spectroscopy of gridded IEC devices (Reference 3.11, 3.12). Using Doppler spectroscopy of the Hydrogen Ha line they have shown that the micro-channels in an IEC discharge operating in the units at tens of mTorr pressure range (for voltages less than 30 kV) are mostly composed of molecular ions with approximately 20 percent atomic hydrogen. They have also developed a spectroscopic model based on collisional radioactive modeling to spectroscopically measure ion densities, electron energies and 31 UNCLASSIFIED,' /P8"1 8PPll!l"'I! l!l!il! 8111!¥
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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.