Assume a working fusor of LPP’s design operates in the ballpark of 100 to 300 htz and the cooling system limits metal temperatures to their practical engineering limits (1000F as a guess?). This would be a very different internal environment than the present room temperature test setup.
The two biggest differences would be in surface metal temperatures and the number of ions already present in the gas when the fusor is fired. For an operating fusor, higher metal temperatures will increase initial electron emission rates and, I expect, initial emission uniformity, compared to a cold fusor. Also, more initial ions in the gas (due to moving up the Boltzman distribution) should also increase initial current sheath uniformity in the gas relative to a cold fusor.
In any event, how practical would it be to install something like a high powered bake-out heater (or perhaps just a heater for the cathode base knife edge) and do a “sensitivity” study of the LPP fusor operation consisting of a cold shot, an intermediate temperature shot, and “as hot as sensible” shot?
I am expecting that heating will increase uniformity in the initial current sheath and ultimately improve fusor performance (perhaps with a bit of retuning of pressure and so forth). That is, the present cold shot tests may be pessimistic. But whether they are pessimistic, optimistic, or initial temperature independent is something that would be useful to know.
Or has this all been considered and explored before?
.
