Enhanced Neutron-Induced Damage Testing through Plasma Window Technology

One of the greatest needs in the development of today’s fusion technology is the ability to test neutron-induced damage to components relevant to proposed fusion sources. There are no available sources that can generate both the neutron flux and relevant energy spectrum necessary. This has forced researchers to utilize simulation and lower energy sources to approximate component response.

From 2019, SHINE Technologies, LLC, has built and operated accelerator-based deuterium-tritium systems yielding a continuous output of 46 trillion neutrons per second. The flux of said system is limited by the distance over which the generated neutrons can be stopped which is a function of the pressure differential between the low-pressure acceleration region and high-pressure gas target region. SHINE has investigated the use of a plasma window composed of a wall-stabilized vacuum arc generated within a specially designed aperture. The high-pressure gas target region, utilizing SHINE’s current aperture size and accelerator-side pressure, saw an increase of nearly 600%. Alternatively, with accelerator and target pressures held constant at SHINE-relevant levels saw over a 550% increase to aperture diameter.

Simulations have shown that utilizing these advancements and multiple neutron-producing SHINE systems would result in a displacement per atom per power year of 0.1-0.3. This represents a vast improvement over existing current SHINE capabilities and offers a complementary route to fusion components testing.