AAWSAP DIRD, Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion, March 2010

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This capability can provide valuable data regarding 3He fusion cross sections at "low"
energies with better counting statistics than accelerator measurements. It appears that
good progress has been made in this direction.
CLOSING COMMENTS
The experiments selected for this section are far from exhaustive. The main
concentration here is on ion-injected IECs such as studied at the UIUC, although
various electron injected devices such as the "Polywell" are mentioned. The
experiments were selected then to explain some issues and status relative to gridded
devices for near-term applications such as neutron sources and also to address some
issues such as ion injection related to future fusion power units. The latter issues
revolve around how to create deep potential wells in the IEC and trap the reacting ions
in the well while excluding neutral gas atoms. The use of external ion sources with
differential pumping then becomes a key approach for production of ions while keeping
ultra low background pressure in the reacting chamber. This is the approach used at
the UIUC. However, introduction of the source into the configuration such that the ions
are born at potentials below the well depth is another possibility as shown by the hybrid
magnetron source work in Japan. Another point noted is the advantage of using pulsed
operation to obtain high peak ion currents to take advantage of the ion density squared
scaling for beam-beam reactions.
REFERENCES
2.1
R. L. Hirsch, "Inertial-Electrostatic Confinement of Ionized Fusion Gases," J. Appl.
Physics 38, no.11, (1967) pp. 4522-4534.
2.2
A. L. Gardner, "Studies of Charged-Particle Distributions in an Electrostatic
Confinement System, "U. S. Atomic Energy Commission Final Report N. C00-2180-7,
Washington, D. C. (1974).
2.3
G. H. Miley, Y. Gu, J. M. DeMorea, R. A. Stubbers, T. A. Hochberg, J. H. Nadler,
and R. A. Anderl, "Discharge Characteristics of the Spherical Inertial Electrostatic
Confinement (IEC) Device," IEEE Transactions Plasma Science, Vol. 24, No. 4, (1997)
pp, 733-739.
2.4
T.J. McGuire and R.J. Sedwick, "Improving IEC Particle Confinement Times Using
Multiple Grids" 7th US-Japan IEC Workshop, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM,
March 14-16 (2005).
2.5
R.A. Anderl, J.K. Hartwell, J.H. Nadler, J.M. DeMora, R.A. Stubbers, and G.H .
Miley, "Development of an IEC Neutron Source for NDE," 16th Symposium on Fusion
Engineering, eds. G.H. Miley and C.M. Elliott, IEEE Conf. Proc. 95CH35852, IEEE,
Piscataway, NJ, (1996) pp. 1482-1485.
2.6
Y. Gu, M. Williams, R. Stubbers, and G. Miley, "Pulsed Operation of Spherical
Inertial-Electrostatic Confinement Device", Fusion Technology, Vol. 30, no. 3, (1996)
pp, 1342-1346.
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