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mheslep
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http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-laser-neutron-yield-energy.html
DT produces 17 MeV per fusion, so that's an output of about 800 joules; a factor of about 150X short of break even for energy applied to the target, and perhaps ~1000X short of the gain required for a practical fusion power reactor given laser losses and thermal to electric conversion losses. Anyone familiar with the scaling laws NIF expects? Do they expect, for instance, an exponential increase with either laser shot energy or perhaps size of the target?
The neutron yield record was set on Sunday, Oct. 31, when the NIF team fired 121 kilojoules of ultraviolet laser light into a glass target filled with deuterium and tritium (DT) gas. The shot produced approximately 3 x 10^14 (300 trillion) neutrons, the highest neutron yield to date by an inertial confinement fusion facility.
DT produces 17 MeV per fusion, so that's an output of about 800 joules; a factor of about 150X short of break even for energy applied to the target, and perhaps ~1000X short of the gain required for a practical fusion power reactor given laser losses and thermal to electric conversion losses. Anyone familiar with the scaling laws NIF expects? Do they expect, for instance, an exponential increase with either laser shot energy or perhaps size of the target?