Recent experiments done at Prague with the 600 J/0.2 ns PALS laser interacting with a layer of boron dopants in a hydrogen enriched target have produced around 10 9 alphas. We suggest that these unexpected very high fusion reactions of proton with 11 B indicate an avalanche multiplication for the measured anomalously high nuclear reaction yields. This can be explained by elastic nuclear collisions in the broad 600 keV energy band, which is coincident with the high nuclear p-11 B fusion cross section, by the way of multiplication through generation of three secondary alpha particles from a single primarily produced alpha particle. Published by AIP Publishing.

With the aim to overcome the problems of climatic changes and rising ocean levels, one option is to produce large-scale sustainable energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen and other very light nuclei similar to the energy source of the sun. Sixty years of worldwide research for the ignition of the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium (D) and tritium (T) have come close to a breakthrough for ignition. The problem with the DT fusion is that generated neutrons are producing radioactive waste. One exception as the ideal clean fusion process – without neutron production – is the fusion of hydrogen (H) with the boron isotope11B11 (B11). In this paper, we have mapped out our research based on recent experiments and simulations for a new energy source. We suggest how HB11 fusion for a reactor can be used instead of the DT option. We have mapped out our HB11 fusion in the following way: (i) The acceleration of a plasma block with a laser beam with the power and time duration of the order of 10 petawatts and one picosecond accordingly. (ii) A plasma confinement by a magnetic field of the order of a few kiloteslas created by a second laser beam with a pulse duration of a few nanoseconds (ns). (iii) The highly increased fusion of HB11 relative to present DT fusion is possible due to the alphas avalanche created in this process. (iv) The conversion of the output charged alpha particles directly to electricity. (v) To prove the above ideas, our simulations show for example that 14 milligram HB11 can produce 300 kWh energy if all achieved results are combined for the design of an absolutely clean power reactor producing low-cost energy.

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A proton beam with a velocity of the order of 10 9 cm/s is generated to interact with a charge neutral hydrogen-boron medium such as H 3 B. The created charged particles are confined by magnetic fields. This concept was the basis for a novel non-thermal fusion reactor, published recently in Laser and Particle Beams [1]. The fusion is initiated by protons followed by a process of chain reactions in a neutral medium density of the order of 10 19 cm −3 , heated by the pB 11 fusion created alphas up to a temperature of about one electron volt. In this system, the radiation losses by bremsstrahlung are negligible and the plasma thermal pressure is low. The ionization of the gaseous medium is caused by the alpha elastic nuclear collisions with the hydrogen atoms and their thermal heating and it is < 10 −4. An external electric field is applied to avoid the energy losses of the protons particles by friction, due to their interaction with the electrons of the medium, to keep the proton-boron fusion at the maximum cross section of about 600 keV at the center of mass frame of reference. The alphas created in the pB 11 fusion undergo nuclear elastic collisions with the hydrogen protons of the medium and causing a pB 11 chain reaction. In this paper the equation of motion of these proton and alphas are solved numerically for the one-dimensional (1D) case, and their possible solutions are analyzed and discussed. Specifically, it is shown how the electric field can mitigate the stopping power for the proton11-proton nuclear fusion. Our results show that starting from a bunch of 10 13 protons in our volume, an alpha number of particles of 6 × 10 16 was accepted after a 5 ms cycle of applying our specially designed electric field. Consequently, the medium temperature was raised to 1.3 eV. The aim of this paper is to present a new concept by addressing only the main physical processes and not to present a complete engineering design. The configuration for mitigating the stopping power and the numerical solution in this paper is novel and promises few applications with a viable proton-boron11 fusion reactions.