Block Ignition Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) with Condensed Matter Cluster Type Targets for p‐B11 Powered Space Propulsion

作     者：George H. Miley H. Hora J. Badziak J. Wolowski Zheng‐Ming Sheng Jie Zhang F. Osman Weiyan Zhang Xia tu He 

作者机构：aUniversity of Illinois Urbana‐Champaign NPL Associates 216 Talbot Laboratory 104 S. Wright St. Urbana IL 61801 217‐333‐3772 bDepartment of Theoretical Physics University of New South Wales Sydney Australia cInstitute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion Warsaw Poland dBeijing National Laboratory for CondensedMatter Physics Institute of Physics Chinese Academy of ScienceBeijing 100080 China eSchool of Computer Sciences University of Western Sydney Penrith Australia fChina Academy of Engineering Physics Mianyang China gInstitute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics Beijing China hInstitute of Physics Academy of Science Prague Czech Republic 

出 版 物：《AIP Conference Proceedings》 

年 卷 期：2009年第1103卷第1期

页      面：656-672页

学科分类：07[理学] 0702[理学-物理学] 

摘      要：The use of laser‐driven Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) for space propulsion has been the subject of several earlier conceptual design studies, (see: Orth, 1998; and other references therein). However, these studies were based on older ICF technology using either “direct “or “in‐direct x‐ray driven type target irradiation. Important new directions have opened for laser ICF in recent years following the development of “chirped lasers capable of ultra short pulses with powers of TW up to few PW which leads to the concept of “fast ignition (FI) to achieve higher energy gains from target implosions. In a recent publication the authors showed that use of a modified type of FI, termed “block ignition (Miley et al., 2008), could meet many of the requirements anticipated (but not then available) by the designs of the Vehicle for Interplanetary Space Transport Applications (VISTA) ICF fusion propulsion ship (Orth, 2008) for deep space missions. Subsequently the first author devised and presented concepts for imbedding high density condensed matter “clusters of deuterium into the target to obtain ultra high local fusion reaction rates (Miley, 2008). Such rates are possible due to the high density of the clusters (over an order of magnitude above cryogenic deuterium). Once compressed by the implosion, the yet higher density gives an ultra high reaction rate over the cluster volume since the fusion rate is proportional to the square of the fuel density. Most recently, a new discovery discussed here indicates that the target matrix could be composed of B11 with proton clusters imbedded. This then makes p‐B11 fusion practical, assuming all of the physics issues such as stability of the clusters during compression are resolved. Indeed, p‐B11 power is ideal for fusion propulsion since it has a minimum of unwanted side products while giving most of the reaction energy to energetic alpha particles which can be directed into an exhaust (propulsion) nozzle. Power plants using p‐