Fusion power concepts based on intersecting beams of fusion fuel ions
Colliding beam fusion (CBF), or colliding beam fusion reactor (CBFR), is a class of fusion power concepts that are based on two or more intersecting beams of fusion fuel ions that are independently accelerated to fusion energies using a variety of particle accelerator designs or other means. One of the beams may be replaced by a static target, in which case the approach is termed accelerator based fusion or beam-target fusion, but the physics is the same as colliding beams.[1]
CBFRs face several problems that have limited their ability to be seriously considered as candidates for fusion power. When two ions collide, they are more likely to scatter than to fuse. Magnetic confinement fusion reactors overcome this problem using a bulk plasma and confining it for some time so that the ions have many thousands of chances to collide. Two beams colliding give ions little time to interact before the beams fly apart. This limits how much fusion power a beam-beam machine can make.
CBFR offers more efficient ways to provide the activation energy for fusion, by directly accelerating individual particles rather than heating a bulk fuel. The CBFR reactants are naturally non-thermal which gives them advantages, especially that they can directly carry enough energy to overcome the Coulomb barrier of aneutronic fusion fuels. Several designs have sought to address the shortcomings of earlier CBFRs, including Migma, MARBLE, MIX, and other beam-based concepts. These attempt to overcome the fundamental challenges of CBFR by applying radio waves, bunching beams together, increasing recirculation, or applying some quantum effects. None of these approaches have succeeded yet.
^Accelerator Technology. Particle Acceleration and Detection. 2020. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-62308-1. ISBN 978-3-030-62307-4. S2CID 229610872.
and 27 Related for: Colliding beam fusion information
Collidingbeamfusion (CBF), or collidingbeamfusion reactor (CBFR), is a class of fusion power concepts that are based on two or more intersecting beams...
Foothill Ranch, California developing aneutronic fusion power. The company's design relies on an advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration (FRC), which...
re-accelerated inward. Overall the physical process is similar to the collidingbeamfusion, although beam devices are linear instead of spherical. Other IEC designs...
migmacell, was a proposed collidingbeamfusion reactor designed by Bogdan Maglich in 1969. Migma uses self-intersecting beams of ions from small particle...
possibility of these machines being used to produce net fusion power. A related concept, collidingbeamfusion, attempts to address this issue using two accelerators...
fuel-infused target, known as beam–target fusion, or by accelerating two streams of ions towards each other, beam–beamfusion.[citation needed] The key problem...
aneutronic fusion reactors, like Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) with the Dense Plasma Focus, and Tri Alpha Energy, Inc. with the CollidingBeamFusion Reactor...
Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two...
by CERN. It is a collider accelerator, which can accelerate two beams of protons to an energy of 6.5 TeV and cause them to collide head-on, creating...
174 million Kelvin, a typical magnetic confinement fusion plasma temperature. The problem with this collidingbeamfusion approach, in general, is that the ions will...
Lattice confinement fusion (LCF) is a type of nuclear fusion in which deuteron-saturated metals are exposed to gamma radiation or ion beams, such as in an...
smash into the plasma. The proton beam produces a tenfold increase of fusion because protons and boron nuclei collide directly. Earlier methods used a...
needed to achieve fusion. The project plans to replace the microwave emitters that heat the plasma in their prototypes with neutral beam injection, in which...
maintain fusion and produce net energy output, the bulk of the fuel must be raised to high temperatures so its atoms are constantly colliding at high speed;...
makes use of a novel two-beam-acceleration scheme: a so-called Drive Beam runs parallel to the colliding Main Beam. The Drive Beam is decelerated in special...
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is an American fusion power company founded in 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts after a spin-out from the Massachusetts...
non-radioactive aneutronic fusion energy source. Maglich built four models of Migma, devices producing fusion of deuterium atoms in colliding ion beams. Maglich received...
the beam–target interaction of IFMIF: A state of the art". Fusion Engineering and Design. Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Fusion Nuclear...
Beamline Compact Linear Collider Dielectric wall accelerator Duoplasmatron International Linear Collider Particle accelerator Particle beam SLAC National Accelerator...
sources include laser and particle beams. The target is a small spherical pellet containing a few milligrams of fusion fuel, typically a mix of deuterium...
LIFE, short for Laser Inertial Fusion Energy, was a fusion energy effort run at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory between 2008 and 2013. LIFE aimed...
a fusion reactor using an electric and magnetic field to heat ions to fusion conditions. The design is related to the fusor, the high beta fusion reactor...
Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) is a fusion power concept that combines features of magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Like...
nuclear fission and fusion. They are a primary contributor to the nucleosynthesis of chemical elements within stars through fission, fusion, and neutron capture...
producing protons from energy is extremely high-energy cosmic ray protons colliding with nuclei in the interstellar medium, via the reaction: p + A → p +...