Success in first step to create "tiny star"

Picture courtesy Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Source: No Source

It’s the size of a peppercorn, but this could the source of limitless energy. Picture courtesy Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Source: No Source

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THE world’s biggest laser has come one step closer to its goal of creating limitless energy for our planet.

Admittedly, that means its goal is still several thousand steps away, but the signs are promising that the National Ignition Facility in California was not kidding when it stated it could create a little sun all of its own.

Based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the NIF is housed in a 10-storey high building that sprawls across a site the size of three US football fields.

Researchers inside are trying to crack nuclear fusion, the high-energy reaction that in theory has the potential to provide clean, safe and most importantly, limitless energy.

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To do it, they proposed to split a laser beam up into 192 beams, then fire them at a little target wrapped in gold that is smaller than a fingernail.

Heating their target up to something in a range that is five times hotter than the sun should cause some hydrogen isotopes to fuse and begin emitting energy.

And as recently as last week, they did just that.

In its first test, its 192 beams delivered one megajoule of energy into a cryogenically layered capsule.

The gold comes in the form of a cylinder the size of a pencil eraser, while the target is a “peppercorn-sized capsule filled with hydrogen fuel”, according to Lawrence Livermore’s website.

Using just 75 per cent of the laser’s power, the “peppercorn” was crushed. According to Wired, a one megajoule zap is like being hit by a automobile traveling at 160km/h.

The shower of neutrons that exploded from the mess was exactly what the researchers were looking for – recreating the conditions at play in the centre of our sun.

“From both a system integration and from a physics point of view, this experiment was outstanding,” NIF director Ed Moses said.

“This is a great moment in the 50-year history of inertial confinement fusion.”

The project, which has so far been five years in development and cost more than $3.5 billion, is expected to deliver useable outcomes within 20 years.

The success of their first ignition will now see them perform similar tests on average about once a month.

But according to Wired, the scientists have to work fast to milk what they can out of the NIF.

Technology this costly is considered too much of a luxury for science alone – in two years, it will be handed over to the military.

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Submited at Thursday, October 14th, 2010 at 12:00 am on Technology by madison
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