U.S. government researchers said they have achieved an important step in the long trek toward making nuclear fusion - the very process that powers stars - a viable energy source for humankind. More here
Using the world's largest laser, the researchers coaxed fusion fuel for the first time to heat itself beyond the heat they zapped into it, achieving a phenomenon called a burning plasma that marked a stride toward self-sustaining fusion energy.
"If you want to make a camp fire, you want to get the fire to hot enough that the wood can keep itself burning," said Alex Zylstra, an experimental physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - part of the U.S. Energy Department - and lead author of the"This is a good analogy for a burning plasma, where the fusion is now starting to become self-sustaining," Zylstra said.
At very high temperatures, the nucleus of the deuterium and the nucleus of the tritium fuse, a neutron and a positively charged particle called an "alpha particle" - consisting of two protons and two neutrons - emerge, and energy is released.The Target Chamber of the National Ignition Facility is seen at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, U.S., in an undated handout image.
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