skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Alpha Particle Diagnostic

Abstract

The study of burning plasmas is the next frontier in fusion energy research, and will be a major objective of the U.S. fusion program through U.S. collaboration with our international partners on the ITER Project. For DT magnetic fusion to be useful for energy production, it is essential that the energetic alpha particles produced by the fusion reactions be confined long enough to deposit a significant fraction of their initial ~3.5 MeV energy in the plasma before they are lost. Development of diagnostics to study the behavior of energetic confined alpha particles is a very important if not essential part of burning plasma research. Despite the clear need for these measurements, development of diagnostics to study confined the fast confined alphas to date has proven extremely difficult, and the available techniques remain for the most part unproven and with significant uncertainties. Research under this grant had the goal of developing diagnostics of fast confined alphas, primarily based on measurements of the neutron and ion tails resulting from alpha particle knock-on collisions with the plasma deuterium and tritium fuel ions. One of the strengths of this approach is the ability to measure the alphas in the hot plasma core where themore » interesting ignition physics will occur.« less

Authors:
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
969021
Report Number(s):
DOE/FG/54150-Final Report
DOE Contract Number:  
FG02-92ER54150
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.; 70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; burning plasmas; energetic alpha particle diagnostics; plasma

Citation Formats

Fisher, Ray, K. Alpha Particle Diagnostic. United States: N. p., 2009. Web. doi:10.2172/969021.
Fisher, Ray, K. Alpha Particle Diagnostic. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/969021
Fisher, Ray, K. 2009. "Alpha Particle Diagnostic". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/969021. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/969021.
@article{osti_969021,
title = {Alpha Particle Diagnostic},
author = {Fisher, Ray, K.},
abstractNote = {The study of burning plasmas is the next frontier in fusion energy research, and will be a major objective of the U.S. fusion program through U.S. collaboration with our international partners on the ITER Project. For DT magnetic fusion to be useful for energy production, it is essential that the energetic alpha particles produced by the fusion reactions be confined long enough to deposit a significant fraction of their initial ~3.5 MeV energy in the plasma before they are lost. Development of diagnostics to study the behavior of energetic confined alpha particles is a very important if not essential part of burning plasma research. Despite the clear need for these measurements, development of diagnostics to study confined the fast confined alphas to date has proven extremely difficult, and the available techniques remain for the most part unproven and with significant uncertainties. Research under this grant had the goal of developing diagnostics of fast confined alphas, primarily based on measurements of the neutron and ion tails resulting from alpha particle knock-on collisions with the plasma deuterium and tritium fuel ions. One of the strengths of this approach is the ability to measure the alphas in the hot plasma core where the interesting ignition physics will occur.},
doi = {10.2172/969021},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/969021}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed May 13 00:00:00 EDT 2009},
month = {Wed May 13 00:00:00 EDT 2009}
}