Reply To: Fusion Oil

[mchargue]

Henning wrote: So it would be something like this:

Nice picture, and yes, that’s the idea.

As far as residue build-up inside the switch body, or on the transmission media, (maybe glass) you should be able to control that. Pick a LASER that can excite the working gas in the switch. Pick a transmission media that is ‘clear’ for the frequency of interest, and that is stable in operation, (little/no out-gassing) and doesn’t react with the gas used in the switch. (a noble gas?) Maybe a HeNe LASER to excite a HeNe gas switch?

The switches could be built/tested offline. Older parts could be removed from the FF reactor for service, and new/rebuilt ones swapped in as needed.

You can secure a LASER with sufficient power to generate a plasma. I mean, have you read up on the NIF experiment of late?

It is important to note that the switch can be designed independent of the FF reactor vessel. That means that the gases used in the switch, and their pressure, aren’t limited/controlled by the gas/pressure requirements of the FF reactor vessel. They’re just fast, high-current, electrical switches. Their gas/LASER requirements will be unrelated to the FF rector vessel, and determined solely by their desired electrical characteristics.

Finally, while symmetry seems to demand a hole through the center of the electrodes to conduct the LASER pulse, there is no such requirement. In order to decrease complexity, the LASER beam routing can be made independent of the electrical wire routing. Further, the LASER need only be fired across the gap, not just is center.

Pat