Description
As global energy demands rise, fusion energy production poses the possibility of generating clean, decarbonized power to the grid. Magnetic-confinement tokamak fusion plasma devices like ITER in Europe or SPARC in the U.S. are currently under construction as energy-positive pathfinders to a full fusion power plant (called DEMO in Europe, ARC in the U.S.). To actually deliver electricity to the grid, massive efficiency improvements in auxiliary subsystems are required.
Neutral Beam Injection (NBI) is one method of reheating, refueling, and driving the current of magnetically-confined plasmas. Fusion fuel deuterium anions are accelerated up to high energies (~1 MeV) and injected into the plasma passed the strong magnetic confinement fields. However, the neutralization process relies on gas-cells which have a theoretical neutralization efficiency of only 55%. For high power ion beams this has the potential to waste tens of megawatts of energy used to accelerate the ion beam (40 amps, 1 MeV planned for ITER NBI).
Photoneutralization is the process of neutralizing a negative ion by irradiating it with light of the proper energy. Photoneutralization has the potential to neutralize at 99% efficiency. But the cross section of the interaction for deuterium ions is low, so very intense light is required.
Our lab at Syracuse University in New York State is building a photoneutralization optical laser cavity with relevant laser powers for high-energy NBI systems. We are targeting 1 megawatt of resonant 1064 nm laser power inside our 70 cm optical cavity. If successful, our system could be employed to break down a massive energetics barrier for reheating and refueling fusion power plants of the future.
| I am the presenting author | Yes |
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