Masers instead lasers for nuclear fusion (I asked Bard)

[Psycho666]

Could this concept work? because microwave oven heats x time faster.

 

https://physicsworld.com/a/national-ignition-facilitys-ignition-milestone-sparks-fresh-push-for-laser-fusion/

 

It is possible that masers could be used for nuclear fusion, but there are some challenges that would need to be overcome.

Masers are similar to lasers, but they emit microwaves instead of light. Microwaves have longer wavelengths and lower frequencies than light, which means that they can penetrate deeper into matter. This could be an advantage for nuclear fusion, as it would allow the masers to heat the fuel more evenly.

However, masers are also less powerful than lasers. This means that they would need to be much larger and more complex to achieve the same results as lasers. Additionally, masers are more susceptible to interference from other electromagnetic waves, which could make them more difficult to operate in a fusion reactor.

Despite these challenges, there is some research being done on the use of masers for nuclear fusion. In 2022, a team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, published a paper in the journal Nature describing their work on a maser-driven fusion reactor. The researchers showed that their maser was able to heat a fuel capsule to temperatures of over 100 million degrees Celsius, which is the threshold for fusion.

More research is needed to determine if masers are a viable option for nuclear fusion. However, the work that has been done so far is promising, and it suggests that masers could be a valuable tool for this technology.

Here are some of the challenges that need to be addressed in order to use masers for nuclear fusion:

• Masers need to be made more powerful.
• Masers need to be made more resistant to interference from other electromagnetic waves.
• Masers need to be made more efficient.
• The physics of maser-driven fusion needs to be better understood.

If these challenges can be overcome, masers could be a promising new technology for nuclear fusion.

 

 

But I doubt this

... will be fast

 

8 minutes ago, Psycho666 said:

Could this concept work? because microwave oven heats x time faster.

 

https://physicsworld.com/a/national-ignition-facilitys-ignition-milestone-sparks-fresh-push-for-laser-fusion/

 

It is possible that masers could be used for nuclear fusion, but there are some challenges that would need to be overcome.

Masers are similar to lasers, but they emit microwaves instead of light. Microwaves have longer wavelengths and lower frequencies than light, which means that they can penetrate deeper into matter. This could be an advantage for nuclear fusion, as it would allow the masers to heat the fuel more evenly.

However, masers are also less powerful than lasers. This means that they would need to be much larger and more complex to achieve the same results as lasers. Additionally, masers are more susceptible to interference from other electromagnetic waves, which could make them more difficult to operate in a fusion reactor.

Despite these challenges, there is some research being done on the use of masers for nuclear fusion. In 2022, a team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, published a paper in the journal Nature describing their work on a maser-driven fusion reactor. The researchers showed that their maser was able to heat a fuel capsule to temperatures of over 100 million degrees Celsius, which is the threshold for fusion.

More research is needed to determine if masers are a viable option for nuclear fusion. However, the work that has been done so far is promising, and it suggests that masers could be a valuable tool for this technology.

Here are some of the challenges that need to be addressed in order to use masers for nuclear fusion:

• Masers need to be made more powerful.
• Masers need to be made more resistant to interference from other electromagnetic waves.
• Masers need to be made more efficient.
• The physics of maser-driven fusion needs to be better understood.

If these challenges can be overcome, masers could be a promising new technology for nuclear fusion.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Psycho666

[swansont]

4 hours ago, Psycho666 said:

Microwaves have longer wavelengths and lower frequencies than light, which means that they can penetrate deeper into matter.

This is moot, since fusion does not deal with significant amounts of bulk material. It also depends on the material and wavelength. Some materials are quite transparent at certain laser wavelengths. Fiber optics depends on this

But you don’t want the EM radiation to penetrate, you want it to exert pressure.

“NIF does this by amplifying and focusing 192 laser beams onto a tiny hollow metal cylinder at the centre of which is a peppercorn-sized capsule containing the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium. X-rays generated from the walls of the cylinder blast off the outer surface of the capsule, forcing the rest of it inwards thanks to momentum conservation and causing the deuterium and tritium nuclei within it to fuse – in the process releasing alpha particles (helium nuclei), neutrons and lots of energy.”

[Duda Jarek]

Being able to build gamma laser ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_laser ), fusion could be trivial - e.g. 782 keV photons to reverse neutron decay: producing free neutrons from hydrogen.

However, it is technically extremely difficult, for free electron lasers maybe 30keV might be reachable, here is 14.4keV for nuclear transition: https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L032007

[Psycho666]

@Duda Jarek

 

It should better work then a MASER fusion reactor

Edited September 1, 2023 by Psycho666

[Duda Jarek]

I was thinking about even more SF ultimate power source: stimulated proton decay - nearly complete matter -> energy transition, ~100x higher energy density than fusion from any matter.

While they search for proton decay in room temperature water pools, it is hypothesized e.g. for baryongenesis (more matter than antimatter just after Big Bang), or Hawking radiation (baryons -> black hole -> massless radiation) - situations with extreme conditions, so I would search for it e.g. in the centers of neutron stars just before collapse to black hole, colliders like LHC (to test if it happens would need a dedicated experiment).

E.g. to explain orders of magnitudes brighter objects than allowed by standard explanations like "Bizarre object 10 million times brighter than the sun defies physics, NASA says" from https://www.space.com/bizare-object-10-times-brighter-than-sun

If possible, it would mean proton is a very deep but local minimum of field configuration - maybe it could be "swing out" of this minimum e.g. with some precise sequence of laser pulses?

Edited September 1, 2023 by Duda Jarek

[Steve81]

12 minutes ago, Duda Jarek said:

I was thinking about even more SF ultimate power source: stimulated proton decay - nearly complete matter -> energy transition, ~100x higher density than fusion from any matter.

While they search for proton decay in room temperature water pools, it is hypothesized e.g. for baryongenesis (more matter than antimatter just after Big Bang), or Hawking radiation (baryons -> black hole -> massless radiation) - situations with extreme conditions, so I would search for it e.g. in the centers of neutron stars just before collapse to black hole, colliders like LHC.

If possible, it would mean proton is a very deep but local minimum of field configuration - maybe it could be "swing out" of this minimum e.g. with some precise sequence of laser pulses?

IMHO, the “ultimate” sci-fi power source that’s halfway grounded in reality is a micro-black hole, where you capture the Hawking radiation. Feed it whatever is available, including the corpses of your fallen foes, and you will have a wondrous supply of energy.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Steve81

[Duda Jarek]

Indeed "baryons -> black hole -> massless Hawking radiation" could be one way to realize stimulated proton decay ... but if this one is possible, there might be also other e.g. more direct ways, like using sequence of laser pulses to directly "swing out" proton from local minimum field configuration.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Duda Jarek

[John Cuthber]

Essentially, you need to heat and compress some fuel to get it to fuse.
You can only focus EM radiation into a spot roughly the size of the wavelength of the radiation.
So for the same output power, you can get much higher power densities (power/ area) using lasers than using masers.
And that means you can get a much higher temperature and pressure.

In principle, you might imagine extrapolating this and using even shorter wavelengths.
But to make a laser you need a population inversion. And the shorter the life span of the upper excited state, the harder it is to fill it up before energy "leaks" out of it.

And, all other things being equal, the lifespan of the upper state is inversely proportional to the cube of the energy.
That's fundamentally, why it's relatively easy to make lasers for visible and very hard for X-rays.
So, for a given input power you can get a lot more output power from a longer wavelength laser. (We use this all the time; our "green laser pointers" are actually IR lasers, frequency doubled to get a visible beam. the increased ease of getting an IR laser to work overcomes teh inefficiency that results from frequency doubling)

And, of course, the best known property of x-rays is that they go straight through stuff.
If all your input energy is in the form of x-rays, it goes right through your target without affecting it.
It doesn't even warm it up. Bother!

There's also the fact that we have been using light for a long time and are skilled at manipulating it.

So, for us, visible light (or near visible IR/ UV), is the "sweet spot" for getting a lot of energy into a target quickly.

 

[TheVat]

Plus one, mainly for a clear explanation but also because this (below) on frequency doubling is one of the coolest things I've learned here.  I already sense that frequency doubling of an IR laser makes a green beam is going to become a staple of my cocktail party chatter.  (an excellent reason to avoid cocktail parties)

 

9 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

So, for a given input power you can get a lot more output power from a longer wavelength laser. (We use this all the time; our "green laser pointers" are actually IR lasers, frequency doubled to get a visible beam. the increased ease of getting an IR laser to work overcomes teh inefficiency that results from frequency doubling)

 

[swansont]

Safety note: these green lasers can “bleed” a lot of IR if there is no IR filter and can be an eye danger since your eyes don’t have a blink reflex for the IR, and there’s a lot of IR power relative to the green light. 

https://www.technologyreview.com/2010/08/12/121205/the-danger-of-green-laser-pointers/