The Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Approach to Fusion Power

Abstract

Inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) of a non-Maxwellian beam-dominated plasma for fusion, originally proposed in the 1950s, has received little attention until recently. Experiments have shown that small IEC devices operating in a beam-background plasma mode are well-suited for a commercial portable low-level neutron source for activation analysis applications. However, the scaling to a high-power fusion reactor is uncertain, due to the lack of experimental data with the higher input currents necessary for beam-beam reactions. Three key issues need to be resolved: the stability of multiple potential well structures, the confinement time of energetic ions trapped in such wells, and the protection of grid structures during high-power operation. If these issues are positively resolved, conceptual design studies show that the resulting reactor would be economically and environmentally attractive and versatile.