Reply To: Fusion Oil

[mchargue]

Henning wrote:

Before someone starts playing with lasers, could someone please explain to me what is the problem with Ignitrons?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignitron

I think the difference here is, that you need to vaporize the mercury first before the current can flow. So it’s much slower, or you cannot orchestrate all ignitrons to switch simultanously enough.

I agree with Henning on this.

I see a problem with speed, and the synchronization of multiple switches. The process used – a puff of vaporized mercury – is, I think, slower, and would be harder to coordinate among multiple switches. You can imagine this puff travelling inside the envelope of the switches to close the switch. It may be that travel time is hard to characterize switch-to-switch, and shot-to-shot

Ionizing gases, on the other hand, assumes no travel-time for the conductive media – just the time it takes to flash the gas into a conductive plasma along the LASER path. Something that I would think is easier to coordinate among multiple switches, and between shots.

Based on the recommendations that have been made, I have to think that this has been brought up in discussions within LPP. I’d appreciate it if someone from LPP could comment on suggestions that have been made. I’d like to hear the reasons for/against the approaches that have been suggested. (though I suspect it will come down to cost, simplicity, and unexpected complications with the switches)

And finally, there’s nothing wrong with playing with LASERs!

Pat