OPTO-MECHANIC DRIVEN LASER-BORON FUSION FOR DRIVING OF SPACECRAFTS

Abstract

A propulsion method including the steps of providing a vehicle comprising a cylindrical reactor unit; conducting a nuclear fusion reaction in the cylindrical reactor unit; and deflecting a pulse of electrically charged ions from the cylindrical reactor unit in one direction in a counter-parabolic electrical field to accelerate a surface of the parabolic wall in an opposite direction so as to propel the vehicle.

Claims

1. A propulsion method comprising: providing a vehicle comprising a cylindrical reactor unit; conducting a nuclear fusion reaction in the cylindrical reactor unit; and deflecting a pulse of electrically charged ions from the cylindrical reactor unit in one direction in a counter-parabolic electrical field to accelerate a surface of the parabolic wall in an opposite direction so as to propel the vehicle.

2. The propulsion method of claim 1, wherein the vehicle is a space vehicle.

3. The propulsion method of claim 1, wherein the nuclear fusion reaction is a multiplicative avalanche reaction.

4. The propulsion method of claim 1, wherein the nuclear fusion reaction is a fusion reaction of hydrogen with boron isotope 11.

5. The propulsion method of claim 1, wherein the nuclear fusion reaction is conducted in a spherical center of the cylindrical reactor unit, which is maintained by a magnetic field of at least 100 Tesla.

6. The propulsion method of claim 1, wherein a timing for generating a magnetic trap with a time of initiation of the laser pulse on the fusion fuel is optimized in the cylindrical volume of the fusion fuel.

7. The propulsion method of claim 1, wherein a distance between the cylindrical reactor unit and a focus of the parabolic wall has a minimum size with no dark discharge between the parabolic wall and the cylindrical reactor unit.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

[0016] The invention described here builds on the use of the HB11 reaction, especially after the disadvantageous five orders of magnitude compared to DT due to the extreme thermal non-equilibrium conditions according to the results in (Hora et al. 2010) through the use of very extreme laser pulses became known for igniting the reaction and became interesting as a propulsion system for spacecraft (Miley et al. 2009; Hora et al. 2011). According to the invention, the further progress with the measured nine orders of magnitudes of bridging is applied in the following form of combination.

[0017] The reaction unit, which is preferably the reaction unit shown in FIG. 1 of U.S. Ser. No. 10/410,752 B2 in the middle of the spherical energy reactor of FIG. 3 of U.S. Ser. No. 10/410,752 B2, is taken over with the laser pulses 1 and 2 acting and brought into the parabolic focus of the rocket drive and per laser shot renewed in this position with every reaction. The wall of the focus is charged against the reaction unit to at least −1.5 megavolts of counter potential, so that all alpha particles emitted from the reactor unit are deflected into a parallel beam and a recoil occurs on the focus wall, which corresponds to almost the entire momentum of the generated alpha particles. Almost the entire momentum of the particles of the fusion reaction then goes into the acceleration of the parabolic wall.

[0018] The introduction of the reactor unit into the focus with the necessary charging takes place in the same way as in the spherical reactor according to U.S. Ser. No. 10/410,752 B2 in the description of the cylindrical coil capacitor shown there in FIG. 1 explained with the arrangement of the cylindrical coil-condensor. The cylindrical fusion fuel is housed coaxially in the coil and captured in the magnetic field generated by the laser. The fusion reaction is ignited by the picosecond petawatt laser pulse, which is incident on the circular end face of the cylindrical fusion fuel.

[0019] While the invention has been described in detail and with reference to specific examples thereof, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope thereof.

REFERENCES CITED

[0020] 1. U.S. Ser. No. 10/410,752 B2 [0021] 2. Hora (1988). Nonlinear effects and nonthermal plasmas. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 271(1), 117-125. [0022] 3. Hora et al. (2017). Non-thermal laser driven plasma-blocks for proton boron avalanche fusion as direct drive option. Matter and Radiation at Extremes, 2(4), 177-189. [0023] 4. Sauerbrey. (1996). Acceleration in femtosecond laser-produced plasmas. Physics of Plasmas, 3(12), 4712-4716. [0024] 5. Hora et al. (2010) Energy and Environment Science, 3 479. [0025] 6. Eliezer et al. (2016). Avalanche proton-boron fusion based on elastic nuclear collisions. Physics of Plasmas, 23(5), 050704. [0026] 7. Picciotto et al. (2014). Boron-proton nuclear-fusion enhancement induced in boron-doped silicon targets by low-contrast pulsed laser. Physical Review X, 4(3), 031030. [0027] 8. Hora et al. (2015). Fusion energy using avalanche increased boron reactions for block-ignition by ultrahigh power picosecond laser pulses. Laser and particle Beams, 33(4), 607-619. [0028] 9. Hora et al. (2018). Laser boron fusion reactor with picosecond petawatt block ignition. IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 46(5), 1191-1197. [0029] 10. Miley et al. (2009). Fast Ignition ICF Fusion With Bose-Einstein Cluster Targets for p-B11 Powered Space Propulsion. In 45th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit (p. 5338). [0030] 11. Hora et al. (2011). Strong shock-phenomena at petawatt-picosecond laser side-on ignition fusion of uncompressed hydrogen-boron11. Astrophysics and Space Science, 336(1), 225-228.