The final stage of the installation of a laser thermonuclear installation was completed in Sarov last week. With its help, it is planned to conduct experiments on controlled inertial thermonuclear fusion. The idea of creating such a facility was first proposed in the 1950s by academicians Andrei Sakharov and Igor Tamm.
Such an installation works as follows: a spherical capsule is filled with a mixture of deuterium and tritium, then a powerful laser pulse is sent to its surface. Under the action of the impulse, a part of the capsule turns into vapor, creating an ablation pressure, which accelerates the spherical piston to very high speeds. Next, the mixture is symmetrically compressed to the parameters required for the thermonuclear reaction.
The cost of the world's most powerful dual-use laser facility is estimated at about 45 billion rubles. Currently, the USA and France have a similar laser facility. In turn, the Russian plant will surpass its foreign counterparts and will be the most powerful in the world. The power of the installation will be about 2.8 MJ, while the power of the above-mentioned American and French laser systems does not exceed 2 MJ.
The laser installation will be of dual use. On the one hand, it will be a defensive component, since the physics of dense hot plasma, the physics of high energy densities are currently most closely studied at such facilities. These experiments can be aimed at creating thermonuclear weapons. On the other hand, it is the energy component. Currently, physicists all over the world are expressing ideas that laser thermonuclear fusion can be useful for them to develop the energy of the future.
It is planned to launch the ultra-high-power laser facility UFL-2m at full power in 2020. The laser installation will include 192 laser channels, and its dimensions will be comparable in area to two football fields. At this unique facility, it is planned to conduct fundamental research on the study of high-temperature dense plasma.
Over the past 40 years, a very powerful base has been created in Sarov for the development of lasers of various powers. The laser production line is a core business for the entire Sarov Technopark, on the territory of which more than 30 resident companies have already deployed.
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At the same time, the UVL-2m laser facility will indeed be used to create a thermonuclear reaction. Back in 1963, Soviet physicist, academician Nikolai Basov and Oleg Krokhin proposed using a laser installation to ignite a thermonuclear target and, on this basis, conduct thermonuclear ignition, and in the future create a thermonuclear power plant. This scheme was different from the one that was proposed earlier and was associated with magnetic confinement. At present, on the basis of this principle, the ITER installation is being built in the French city of Cadarache, which is a joint international project of several countries.
The laser installation under construction in Russia will make it possible to use the so-called inertial mode, in which the thermonuclear fuel is ignited not due to the fact that it has been in a hot state for a long time, and the substance remains not very dense, but, on the contrary, the thermonuclear mixture is compressed to a very high temperature. and density. Moreover, this process itself takes a very short time. The difference is that in this case a small controlled microexplosion is carried out.
A super-powerful laser installation may be needed for other purposes, in particular, with its help it will be possible to approach the characteristics to which matter can be compressed and heated in stars, for example, as in the Sun. It is for this reason that research in the field of high-temperature plasma can be applied in the interests of astrophysics - for the study of astrophysical plasma. Often humanity is faced with the fact that we do not fully know and understand the fundamental properties of matter, especially at high pressure and density. For example, the equation of state. To solve these problems, special targets are made, with the help of which such studies are carried out with the help of laser installations. There are many other areas of high power laser applications that are of interest to scientists around the world.
It is assumed that the construction of an ultra-powerful UFL-2m laser can help in the development of a thermonuclear reactor. If we turn to history, it can be noted that the first nuclear power plant was created almost simultaneously with the development of atomic weapons. At one time, the founding fathers, having received ignition at the test site, that is, having implemented a thermonuclear explosion in practice, hoped that a thermonuclear reactor would be developed quite quickly. It was then that Andrei Sakharov's proposal appeared that thermal insulation by a plasma magnetic field could be used to confine the plasma. However, more than half a century has passed since the 1950s, and mankind still does not have a thermonuclear reactor. It turned out that its creation is a very difficult problem, since plasma is a rather unstable thing and has a number of different features.
Fundamental research on the creation of a thermonuclear reactor is still under way, so nothing can be said about the timing of this project. At the same time, if a thermonuclear fuel can be ignited at an American or a new Russian installation, then work on the creation of a thermonuclear reactor will begin almost instantly.
The laser used in the Russian installation, like its American counterpart, will be pulsed. In this case, it will be necessary to solve not only the very problem of ignition of thermonuclear fuel, but also to significantly develop laser technologies in order to obtain in practice the so-called pulse-periodic laser. In order to receive electrical energy from such installations, it is necessary that the laser can shoot with a frequency of about 10 rounds / min. Currently, there are simply no such lasers. But it is precisely the development of laser technologies that will be implemented in the development of a new Russian facility that will contribute to the emergence of new approaches, new materials in the development of lasers. The world is already taking the first steps in this direction. There already exist pulsed periodic systems of sufficient power, but it still takes time,in order to create new laser environments, new materials.
At the same time, the Russian installation can supplement the knowledge that will be gained in the process of implementing an international project to create a thermonuclear reactor in Karadash. Although the principles of the installations used are different, the ignition processes are still similar. Research and materials that will be obtained at these two facilities will be able to complement each other.