A team at Los Alamos National Laboratory has successfully recreated a significant yet largely overlooked physics experiment: the first recorded observation of deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion. Their updated version of the 1938 experiment, recently detailed in Physical Review C, reaffirms the pivotal role of University of Michigan physicist Arthur Ruhlig. Ruhlig’s original work likely laid the foundation for a fusion process that continues to influence both nuclear energy development and national security programs.
“Ruhlig’s key insight was proposing that DT fusion occurs with a very high probability when deuterium and tritium are brought into close proximity,” explained Mark Chadwick, associate Laboratory director for Science, Computation and Theory at Los Alamos. “By replicating his experiment, we were able to revisit his original conclusions and appreciate how accurate they were. His intuition had a lasting impact on the direction of nuclear fuel research.”
To read more, click here.