CONTROLLED FUSION REACTOR

• US 3,663,362 A
• Filed: 12/22/1970
• Issued: 05/16/1972
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/1970
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Thomas H. Stix
• Original Assignee: Thomas H. Stix
• Inventors: Stix, Thomas H.
• Application Number:
  US05/100,734
• Time in Patent Office: 511 Days
• US Class Current: 376/132
• CPC Class Codes: G21B 1/05 with magnetic or electric plasma confinement
• CPC Class Codes: H05H 1/12 wherein the containment vessel forms a closed or nearly closed loop G21B1/05 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 30/10 Nuclear fusion reactors

Abstract

Method and apparatus for plasma confinement and/or heating in a toroid-like magnetic system, wherein a dense electron-rich sheath is maintained between the surface of a toroid-like body of quasineutral plasma and an adjacent conducting wall or grid in order to create a deep electrostatic potential well for the ions of said quasi-neutral plasma and thus to enhance the confinement of ions in said system and/or to accelerate injected ions for the heating of said plasma.

Claims

2. The invention of claim 1 in which the apparatus is so constructed that the deviations between said conducting wall and the adjacent magnetic lines of force are smaller than one millimeter.

3. The invention of claim 1 having means forming sensor electrodes, control electrodes, and a processing unit for obtaining electrical signals from said plasma through said sensor electrodes, processing unit and control electrodes seriatim to supply time-varying voltages to said plasma to suppress disruptive effects of instabilities of said ions and electrons.

4. The invention of claim 1 in which the charge densities of said ions and electrons in said plasma are approximately equal and substantially uniform, and in which the temperatures of said ions and electrons are substantially uniform.

5. The invention of claim 1 in which said magnetic field is axisymmetric with components only in the toroidal direction.

6. The invention of claim 1 wherein the ions of said plasma include energetic ions of isotopes of hydrogen, helium and/or lithium and wherein thermonuclear energy is released due to the interaction of said energetic ions.

7. The invention of claim 1 wherein the ions of said plasma are stripped of a large fraction of their electrons and wherein said apparatus is used as a source for said highly-stripped ions, including use as a source for a heavy-ion accelerator.

8. The method for magnetoelectric confinement of a quasi-neutral plasma of ions and electrons in a magnetic field which circumnavigates the interior of a vacuum container many times, comprising the steps of producing, stabilizing, and maintaining an electron-rich sheath between said quasi-neutral plasma and an approximately adjacent conducting wall wherein the separation between said plasma and said conducting wall is smaller than one centimeter, where the density and spatial extent of said sheath are such that the difference in electrostatic potential between said plasma and said wall is larger than twice the average kinetic energy per unit charge associated with ions in said plasma.

9. The method of claim 8 in which said sheath is produced by scrape-off at the plasma surface in which the scrape-off of both ions and electrons tends, because of their vastly different gyro-radii, to reduce the densities of said ions and electrons in the vicinity of said sheath in an unequal fashion.

10. The method of claim 9 in which the scraped-off ions comprise those ions whose kinetic energies exceed twice the average kinetic energy of ions in said plasma, fusion-product-ions and runaway ions.

11. The method of claim 8 in which said sheath is produced by magnetic injection of negative electric charge, comprising electrons injected toward said plasma from the vicinity of said wall whereby the strength of said magnetic field is made to increase with time in order that said electrons will be transported into a region interior to said wall by the moving of said magnetic lines of force.

12. The method of claim 8 in which said sheath is produced by rf magnetic injection, whereby said magneTic field is modulated at high frequency over a small region in the vicinity of a portion of said sheath in order that electrons from an electron source located in the vicinity of said portion of sheath and in the vicinity of said wall, will be transported into the region interior to said wall.

13. The method of claim 8 in which the frequency of modulation is made to lie within the range of frequencies with which electrons in said sheath circumnavigate said plasma.

14. The method of claim 12 in which said rf modulation of the local magnetic field is performed at two adjacent locations spaced out somewhat from each other along a static magnetic line of force and in which said two modulations are out of phase with each other.

15. The method of claim 12 in which a portion of said wall in the vicinity of said rf modulation field and in the vicinity of said electron source is given a positive potential bias with respect to the remainder of said wall in order to better confine electrons from said source within the region of said rf modulation field during the period of their rf magnetic injection.

16. The method of claim 8 in which said plasma is heated by the acceleration of ions from an ion source located in the vicinity of said wall that fall through an electric field produced by said sheath and whereby said energy gained by said falling ions is at least partly randomized in said plasma and helps to heat said plasma.

17. The invention of claim 16 in which means are employed approximately simultaneously to inject negative charge into said plasma and said sheath in order to neutralize the injection of positive charge by said falling and randomizing ions.