Abstract: A method of using an ICF chamber may include causing a target in the ICF chamber to emit x-ray radiation; receiving the x-ray radiation through a plurality of holes in a wall of the ICF chamber; and absorbing the x-ray radiation in a gas contained in a plurality of tubes that are coupled to the plurality of holes.

Abstract: The present disclosure relates launch systems, launch vehicles for use with the launch system, and methods of launching articles utilizing the launch vehicle and/or the launch system. In particular, various improvements for electroantimagnetic launch systems, vehicles, and methods are provided.

Abstract: Cylindrical inertial confinement fusion reaction chambers are disclosed according to some embodiments of the invention. These chambers can include neutron moderating/absorbing material, radiation absorbing material, and debris collection material. These chambers can also include various injection ports, nozzles, beam ports, sacrificial layers, absorbers, coolant systems, etc. These chambers can be used with directional and/or omni-directional targets.

Abstract: A method and system for achieving fusion is provided. The method includes providing laser source that generates a laser beam and a target that includes a capsule embedded in the target and filled with DT gas. The laser beam is directed at the target. The laser beam helps create an electron beam within the target. The electron beam heats the capsule, the DT gas, and the area surrounding the capsule. At a certain point equilibrium is reached. At the equilibrium point, the capsule implodes and generates enough pressure on the DT gas to ignite the DT gas and fuse the DT gas nuclei.

Abstract: A method of producing a localized concentration of energy includes providing a series of projectiles and firing the projectiles at a target. An apparatus for producing localized concentration of energy includes: a mechanism to provide a series of projectiles and a mechanism to fire the projectiles at a target. The target is configured such that upon striking the target, a projectile traps and compresses a volume of gas between the projectile and the target. The target and the projectile are also configured such that impact of the projectile onto the target gives rise to a converging shockwave inside the trapped volume of gas.

Abstract: Cylindrical inertial confinement fusion reaction chambers are disclosed according to some embodiments of the invention. These chambers can include neutron moderating/absorbing material, radiation absorbing material, and debris collection material. These chambers can also include various injection ports, nozzles, beam ports, sacrificial layers, absorbers, coolant systems, etc. These chambers can be used with directional and/or omni-directional targets.

Abstract: A new process and arrangement (as shown in FIG. 1) to study nuclear fusion with the aim to achieve a process in which a safer method can be established for the production of electrical power as practiced today in nuclear power plants. The process describes the production of and permits the use of single atomic layers of reactive nuclear materials in a high speed collision which can be brought gradually up in steps to the critical point without any uncontrolled reaction. In the wake of the development it is sought to have a high speed repetitive arrangement which can be used as a low cost and totally safe method of electrical power production, using nuclear materials, without the risk of an uncontrolled reaction or system failure.

Abstract: This invention relates to the generation of a sufficiently high temperature and pressure to ignite a nuclear fusion reaction making fusion economically viable for energy generation. A method to achieve ignition of a nuclear fusion reaction is disclosed. The method uses collision of high-velocity fuel pellets/projectiles that contain nuclear fuel and have tailpieces of high atomic weight. Fusible gas in the pellet is preheated and rapidly compressed by collision impact to heat it to fusion ignition temperature. A major portion of the projectile's kinetic energy is converted during collision impact into thermal energy heating the fusion gas to ignite a fusion reaction. The energy released from the nuclear fusion reaction exceeds the input energy. The excess energy can be harvested for generation of electric power.

Abstract: An acoustic inertial confinement nuclear fusion device is disclosed. The device includes an enclosure that holds a fluid with dissolved alpha emitters. A generator is coupled to the enclosure, and the generator is configured to harmonically drive the fluid in the enclosure to induce an acoustic standing wave in the fluid. The dissolved alpha emitters nucleate bubble clusters in the fluid as the fluid is driven by the generator. Neutrons, tritium and/or gamma rays, are emitted from the fluid, without or with an external source of neutrons.

Abstract: A nano-fusion reactor comprised of nano-particles such as carbon based nanotubes, endohedral fullerenes and other nano materials encapsulating fusible fuels such as the hydrogen isotopes, deuterium, and tritium. The nano-devices encapsulate the fusible materials and ignite fusion reactions which in some of the embodiments consume the nano-fusion reactor device requiring the replenishment of these devices so to continue the fusible reactions. The reactions can be controlled and scaled through modulated presentation of fusion targets to the ignition chamber. The fusion reactions are ignited in the embodiments through one or more of the applied forces in the fusion reactor: electromagnetic compressive, electrostatic, and thermo. These applied forces in conjunction with the extreme structural strength, the ablation forces and purity of the nano-fusion device produces maximum forces necessary for the production of a shock wave on the nano-encapsulated device to ignite one or a plurality of fusion reactions.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for producing controlled steady state nuclear fusion with isotopes of low atomic numbers being the most useful reactants, such as Deuterium, Tritium and Helium3. The apparatus consists of a high voltage power supply and a high voltage spherical capacitor, constructed in such a way, that the outer shell is the anode and contained centrally within it, a hollow cathode, into which positive ions of the reactant gases can be injected through dielectric tubes and confined electrostatically within the cathode, until such high temperatures are reached, as to allow nuclear fusion to take place.

Abstract: Flow of mercury from a liquid-heavy-metal inflow port toward an inner forward end of a container body is rectified by a plurality of incoming-passage guide vanes in a liquid-heavy-metal incoming passage. Flow of the mercury from the forward end of the container body toward a liquid-heavy-metal outflow port is rectified by a plurality of return-passage guide vanes in a liquid-heavy-metal return passage. As a result, occurrence of stagnation and/or recirculation flows of the mercury in the container body is suppressed and a steady and highly uniform stream of the mercury is formed throughout in the container body. The container body is covered with a container outer shell to prevent any leakage of the mercury to outside due to a damage of the container body.

Abstract: A multiwavelength mode-locked (MWML) angled-stripe SOA laser that emits multiple discrete groups of wavelengths simultaneously in a short time interval, where each group is located at a wavelength suitable to wavelength division multiplexed optical transmission. Feedback and/or feedthrough optics are combined with a angled-stripe SOA to provide different laser embodiments. The actively mode locked MWML laser emits individual spectral components at a plurality of wavelengths simultaneously. The optics are coupled to one or more angled-stripe SOA ports in reflective or optical ring resonator configurations to provide simultaneous feedback at the plurality of wavelengths and to provide substantially identical round-trip travel times and net gains within the lasing cavity for pulses at each of the plurality of wavelengths. A MWML laser so formed is particularly useful as a multiwavelength source for optical signal processing and transmission systems and can be placed in a hermetically sealed package.

Abstract: A method of concentrating energy to produce large velocity, high pressure and/or high temperature conditions, including the steps of forming a resonant cavity inside a container; filling the resonant cavity with a liquid having a compressibility that is smaller than that of water at room temperature; coupling energy into the resonant cavity at a frequency which drives the resonant cavity at or near a resonant mode thereby creating one or more velocity nodes in the resonant cavity; and capturing a quantity of material or mixture of material in the resonant cavity at one of the velocity nodes.

Abstract: Sonoluminescence is an off-equilibrium phenomenon in which the energy of a resonant sound wave in a liquid is highly concentrated so as to generate flashes of light. The conversion of sound to light represents an energy amplification of eleven orders of magnitude. The flashes which occur once per cycle of the audible or ultrasonic sound fields can be comprised of over one million photons and last for less 100 picoseconds. The emission displays a clocklike synchronicity; the jitter in time between consecutive flashes is less than fifty picoseconds. The emission is blue to the eye and has a broadband spectrum increasing from 700 nanometers to 200 nanometers. The peak power is about 100 milliWatts. The initial stage of the energy focusing is effected by the nonlinear oscillations of a gas bubble trapped in the liquid. For sufficiently high drive pressures an imploding shock wave is launched into the gas by the collapsing bubble.

Abstract: A high-power-density laser or charged-particle-beam fusion reactor system maximizes the directed kinetic energy imparted to a large mass of liquid lithium by a centrally located fusion target. A fusion target is embedded in a large mass of lithium, of sufficient radius to act as a tritium breeding blanket, and provided with ports for the access of beam energy to implode the target. The directed kinetic energy is converted directly to electricity with high efficiency by work done against a pulsed magnetic field applied exterior to the lithium. Because the system maximizes the blanket thickness per unit volume of lithium, neutron-induced radioactivities in the reaction chamber wall are several orders of magnitude less than is typical of other fusion reactor systems.

Abstract: A projectile is accelerated along a confined path by supplying a pulsed high pressure, high velocity plasma jet to the rear of the projectile as the projectile traverses the path. The jet enters the confined path at a non-zero angle relative to the projectile path. The pulse is derived from a dielectric capillary tube having an interior wall from which plasma forming material is ablated in response to a discharge voltage. The projectile can be accelerated in response to the kinetic energy in the plasma jet or in response to a pressure increase of gases in the confined path resulting from the heat added to the gases by the plasma.

Abstract: A spherical underground cavity is filled with saturated steam or a mixture of saturated steam and coal dust in which a nuclear device is detonated to provide the source of energy. The energy thus released heats the saturated steam to produce superheated steam used to generate power. If coal dust is mixed with the saturated steam in the correct ratio, the rise in temperature caused by the nuclear explosion initiates a chemical reaction between the steam and the coal to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen can be used as fuel in an external power plant. The carbon monoxide and the hydrogen gases can also be separated for use as fuels or for industrial applications. The wall of the spherical underground cavity is isolated from the shock wave created by the nuclear explosion in the ambient saturated steam by a segmented steel shell. Each segments is supported by a shock absorbing mechanism attached to the rocks in which the cavity is embedded.

Abstract: An inertial confinement fusion method in which target pellets are imploded in sequence by laser light beams or other energy beams at an implosion site which is variable between pellet implosions along a line. The effect of the variability in position of the implosion site along a line is to distribute the radiation fluence in surrounding reactor components as a line source of radiation would do, thereby permitting the utilization of cylindrical geometry in the design of the reactor and internal components.

Abstract: An axi-symmetrical projectile, having a mass ranging from fractions of a gram to kilograms, is accelerated to velocities in the range of 10.sup.5 to 10.sup.7 centimeters per second by a propelling force produced by a plasma resulting from electric discharge. The discharge is imploded against the projectile surface so lines of the magnetic fields are approximately azimuthal around the projectile axis. The projectile is tapered so it experiences a net, stable axial accelerating force along the accelerator axis by the combined action of the magnetic field producing radially directed momentum and pressure on the plasma, the interaction of the magnetic field and ions induced by the plasma on the surface, as well as material the plasma ablates from the surface. The plasma discharge is initiated either in low density background gas between anode and cathode of a discharge module, or along an insulator surface between the electrodes in low density background gas.

Abstract: A large free-falling mass with a hollow vertical hole therethrough is intercepted by a smaller sub-critical high velocity downward traveling mass and with a smaller sub-critical high velocity upward traveling mass. A resulting explosion is contained within a large chamber which contains much molten sodium spray which attenuates the effects of the explosion and absorbs the explosion's energy and debris. The heated molten sodium with debris provides useful thermal energy to a heat exchanger means and materials for new masses and for new assemblies that are manufactured from precipitate therefrom. The reactor system is a net consumer of plutonium and converts spent enriched uranium LWR fuels into enriched (mostly of U.sup.233) uranium by the neutron irradiation of thorium.

Abstract: Apparatus for protecting the inner wall of a fusion chamber from microexplosion debris, x-rays, neutrons, etc. produced by deuterium-tritium (DT) targets imploded within the fusion chamber. The apparatus utilizes a fluidized wall similar to a waterfall comprising liquid lithium or solid pellets of lithium-ceramic, the waterfall forming a blanket to prevent damage of the structural materials of the chamber.

Abstract: The invention relates to a novel method for the controlled release of thermonuclear energy by inertial confinement. The essential feature of the invention is that is uses for the achievement of this goal high temperature black body radiation. The black body radiation is generated by hypervelocity impact onto a tenuous gas trapped inside a small cavity. The tenuous gas is shock-heated to high temperatures and thereby becomes a source of intense photon radiation, which after reaching thermodynamic equilibrium becomes a black body radiation. The thusly generated black body radiation is the furthermore amplified by adiabatic compression through the implosion of the cavity. During the implosion process the photons inside the cavity must be sufficiently well confined by the opacity of the cavity wall which sets a lower limit for the implosion velocity. The thusly created and amplified black body radiation is then used to ablatively implode and ignite a thermonuclear target placed inside the cavity.