In news: Recently, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced that an experiment carried out in its National Ignition Facility has made a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research.
In the experiment, lasers were used to heat a small target or fuel pellets.
These pellets containing deuterium and tritium fused and produced more energy.
The team noted that they were able to achieve a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules.
What exactly is nuclear fusion?
Nuclear fusion is defined as the combining of several small nuclei into one large nucleus with the subsequent release of huge amounts of energy.
Nuclear fusion powers our sun and harnessing this fusion energy could provide an unlimited amount of renewable energy.
It has many advantages, such as inexhaustibility of resources, no long-lived radioactive wastes, and almost no CO2 emissions.
How was the new breakthrough achieved?
The team used new diagnostics, improved laser precision, and even made changes to the design.
They applied laser energy on fuel pellets to heat and pressurise them at conditions similar to that at the centre of our Sun. This triggered the fusion reactions
These reactions released positively charged particles called alpha particles, which in turn heated the surrounding plasma.
At high temperatures, electrons are ripped from atom’s nuclei and become a plasma or an ionised state of matter. Plasma is also known as the fourth state of matter
The heated plasma also released alpha particles and a self-sustaining reaction called ignition took place.
Ignition helps amplify the energy output from the nuclear fusion reaction and this could help provide clean energy for the future.
The team noted an energy output of more than 1.3 megajoules
What is the significance of the experiment?
This is a major breakthrough as the output is higher than the previous highest energy achieved.
Previously, laser fusion programmes faced several difficulties as scientists were not able to completely understand the plasma.
Reproducing the conditions at the centre of the Sun (using fusion reaction) will allow humans to study states of matter including those found in stars and supernovae.
Scientists could also gain insights into quantum states of matter and even conditions closer and closer to the beginning of the Big Bang – the hotter we get, the closer we get to the very first state of the Universe
