Scientists at the U.S.Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have identified a potentially much more efficient way to achieve fusion ignition, a major milestone in the pursuit of practical fusion energy. Their calculations suggest that changing the order in which plasma is heated and compressed could dramatically reduce the energy needed to reach a self-sustaining fusion reaction.
For more than seven decades, fusion researchers have relied on a mathematical rule to determine whether plasma can remain sufficiently hot and dense, for a long enough period, to sustain fusion without additional external heating. Known as the Lawson criterion, this equation defines the conditions required for ignition. However, it does not explain the most efficient way to achieve them.
Now, PPPL physicists Luis Delgado-Aparicio, Masayuki Ono, and Jonathan Menard have developed a more comprehensive version of the criterion. By incorporating four additional factors that influence fusion performance, they have mapped a promising route to ignition that could require substantially less energy than alternative approaches.
Their findings were published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
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