HUN-REN Researchers Test a Revolutionary Idea for Nuclear Fusion Reactor

Domestic researchers are trying to improve the efficiency of nuclear fusion reactions by using nanoscale metal particles. The researchers are carrying out the fusion research at the Nanoplasmonic Laser Fusion Research Laboratory of the HUN-REN Wigner Research Center for Physics. This is a new method that could completely rewrite the future of energy production. Experimental validation of the results achieved so far has begun at ELI ALPS in Szeged (southern Hungary).

Fusion power generation is possible in a much more concentrated way, using significantly less raw materials than other current production methods, including nuclear fission power plants, writes Magyar Nemzet. For example, 20 tons of coal is the equivalent of about one kilogram of fissile material (uranium); the same amount of energy can be extracted from one gram of fusion fuel.

Applied research is being carried out worldwide to achieve nuclear fusion.

Given that the most advanced projects are decades away from operational experimental reactors, the race is not yet over; hence, there is justification for research in other directions. All the more so, because if an efficient system can be created,

it can produce cheap and abundant energy that could solve the world’s energy problem in the long term.

Under terrestrial conditions, two isotopes of hydrogen are needed to create a fusion power plant with a power far beyond that of conventional nuclear power plants. However, the plasma state required for nuclear fusion is to be achieved at extremely high temperatures in many experimental reactors, such as the internationally collaborative ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). There, magnets are used to hold the plasma together, separating it from all other materials and making it hotter than the sun. This is a rather expensive and uncertain solution, which is not yet ready for a fusion power plant.

Hungarian researchers are taking a different approach: they have set themselves the goal of developing a way of realizing “nanofusion,” or nanoplasmonic laser fusion. This means that they want to create the conditions for fusion, i.e. ignition of the fuel, not by temperature and pressure, but primarily by making electrons – so-called plasmons – on the surface of the metal move at high speed. That is why the solution developed in Hungary based on the ideas of Norbert Kroó, László Csernai, and István Papp could be revolutionary. The idea is completely new in the field of inertial fusion; no one has ever tried it before.

Instead of symmetric compression, they plan to start the fusion by using a combination of nanotechnology and fast laser ignition on both sides, for which ELI ALPS in Szeged offers a unique opportunity.

Experimental work has also recently started on the SYLOS Experiment Alignment (SEA) laser system at ELI ALPS. However, processing and evaluation of the results will take some time. If the theory proves to be correct and the experiments are successful (nuclear fusion is triggered by short pulse lasers at the nanometer scale), there is every chance that nanofusion will be a new model for energy production. If it works, nanofusion itself could completely rewrite the way energy is produced in the future.

Via Magyar Nemzet; Featured image via Facebook/ELI ALPS Laser Research Institute