The entire fusion fuel canister would need to be enveloped by fission energy, to both compress and heat it, as with the booster charge in a boosted primary.
42.
This made the use of a higher mass of the then scarce fusion fuel in the rear end of the secondary assembly inefficient and the whole device wasteful.
43.
There are two parts to a typical hydrogen bomb, a plutonium-based atomic bomb known as the primary, and a cylindrical arrangement of fusion fuels known as the secondary.
44.
Inside this is the fusion fuel itself, usually a form of lithium deuteride, which is used because it is easier to weaponize than liquified tritium / deuterium gas.
45.
The resulting implosion would drive the plasma formed from the vaporized pellet inward on itself, compressing and heating the fusion fuel inside it until a thermonuclear explosion occurs.
46.
Mixing of the metal with the fusion fuel would " quench " the reaction ( a problem that occurs in MCF systems when plasma touches the vessel wall ).
47.
They will later be scaled up in power and plan to add the necessary fusion fuel ( deuterium ) by the end ( Sept 2014 ) of the NIAC Study.
48.
This combination of ideas, along with a fission " sparkplug " embedded inside of the fusion fuel, became what is known as the Teller Ulam design for the hydrogen bomb.
49.
The fusion fuel used by the bomb was 95 % enriched Lithium isotope 6 lithium deuteride, which at the time was a scarce resource and chiefly responsible for its limited deployment.
50.
A different approach was envisioned for AIMStar in which small fusion fuel droplets would be injected into a cloud of antiprotons confined in a very small volume within a reaction Penning trap.
