Towards Advanced-fuel Fusion: Electron, Ion Energy >100 keV in a Dense Plasma

Abstract

Controlled fusion with advanced fuels requires average electron and ion energies above 100 keV (equivalent to 1.1 billion K) in a dense plasma. We have met this requirement and demonstrated electron and ion energies over 100 keV in a compact and inexpensive dense plasma focus device. We have achieved this in plasma "hot spots" or plasmoids that, in our best results, had a density-confinement-time-energy product of 5.0 x1015 keVsec/cm3, a record for any fusion experiment. We measured the electron energies with an X-ray detector instrument that demonstrated conclusively that the hard X-rays were generated by the hot spots.