The sun is an amazing thing. It allows us to live on this Earth by heating the planet from 93 million miles away. The sun uses fusion to do this. Fusion is the process by which Hydrogen atoms combine to form Helium atoms - a process that happens to release a large amount of energy. Across the globe, there are efforts to control the immense power of fusion to supply the world with energy. But there is a catch --- How are we supposed to even induce fusion in a controlled manner? The H-bomb needed fission explosions to provide the heat and pressure required to induce fusion. Won't our efforts to start a fusion reaction end in destruction if we use the H-bomb technique?
That's where lasers come in. Small amounts of fuel can be heated and pressurized through the use of lasers and some other structures. There are two methods to control fusion that are being researched currently: Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and magnetic confinement fusion (MCF).
ICF uses a pellet of Beryllium and isotopes of Hydrogen (the fuel) filled in a gold cylinder. Lasers hit the outer layer causing it to explode, creating huge shockwaves, high pressure, and immense temperatures inside the cylinder. An IOP article states that an experiment at the National Ignition Facility shot 192 laser beams at one of these cylinders to produce temperatures up to 3.6 million degrees Celsius! That's hotter than the sun, people.
MCF uses strong magnetic fields to create a "magnetic pressure" on the plasma of the fusion reaction. Other methods besides using lasers are used to heat the plasma in MCF.
Fusion is a seriously cool topic, and it is amazing how lasers can be used to produce such extreme conditions to induce fusion. How many people can say they have mimicked the sun with their research? Not me, but maybe someday!
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