European XFEL’s Post

Inertial Fusion energy at the European XFEL facility on June 11-12: Call for professionals from both industry and academia for a pivotal workshop on IFE. Registration at: https://lnkd.in/exq5uCbm You are invited to discuss the general role of XFELs towards an inertial fusion energy power plant and identify both IFE-relevant activities that can be pursued at the existing HED-HIBEF instrument and flagship experiments with a future IFE-RI, ideally providing multi-kJ, multi-beam long pulse and short pulse drive lasers. The topics to be discussed include:  - XFEL-based diagnostics of IFE target physics: ablator & fuel EOS, microphysics and transport properties, hydro instabilities, intense laser-matter interaction for shock and fast ignition, etc.  - Microscopic x-ray imaging and diffraction of dynamic radiation damage cascades of fusion reactor walls in strong radiation environments including the lifetime assessment of plasma-facing materials. - XFEL-based diagnostics of IFE plasmas compatible with sub-scale and full-scale IFE facilities (i.e., with high repetition rate and extreme radiation environments). - Laser technology required for IFE-RI. - Theory & simulation developments required to support an IFE program at EuXFEL. - Setting up a new partner consortium for IFE research at European XFEL.

This week's most recent #PlasmaPhysics reports new results and insights for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) Published from January 5 - 8: Jun Li, Rui Yan, Bin Zhao, Junfeng Wu, Lifeng Wang, Shiyang Zou; Effect of hot-electron preheating on the multimode bubble-front growth of the ablative Rayleigh–Taylor instability. https://lnkd.in/e6RwtyT4 Benjamin L. Reichelt, Richard D. Petrasso, Chikang Li; Effects of alpha-ion stopping on ignition and ignition criteria in inertial confinement fusion experiments. https://lnkd.in/euuu6b-Z W. Trickey, V. N. Goncharov, R. Betti, E. M. Campbell, T. J. B. Collins, R. K. Follett; The physics of gain relevant to inertial fusion energy target designs. https://lnkd.in/ezRpd-gc

A few years back, predicting the performance of burning plasmas with nonlinear turbulence simulations seemed like a distant dream. But not anymore! 🚀 We are excited to make available our latest preprint on our work exploring the first plasmas that #SPARC will produce, by leveraging #GPU-accelerated, nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations with CGYRO together with #MachineLearning techniques in PORTALS. This marks an exciting era in core transport research, enabling the use of advanced turbulence models for tokamak experiment planning. Moreover, we're on track to validate these predictions under breakeven conditions in just two years! 🔥 Can’t wait to #LightTheSPARC. Onwards Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT! 🔥 We are entering the most existing time for #FusionEnergy https://lnkd.in/eRutvu5B

New Markets for Solid State Amplifier’s Continue to Grow! Klystrons and/or Traveling wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs) are electronic devices that have been widely used in various applications for decades. Despite the advancements in technology, TWTAs continue to find applications in several fields. One of the main reasons for their continued use is their ability to provide high power amplification over a broad frequency range, making them suitable for applications that require high output power and wide bandwidth. TWTAs are commonly employed in satellite communications, where they are used to amplify weak signals received from satellites before retransmitting them back to Earth. They are also utilized in radar systems, where their high power capabilities and wide bandwidth allow for long-range detection and accurate target tracking. Additionally, TWTAs are still employed in scientific research, particularly in particle accelerators and plasma physics experiments, where their ability to generate high-power radio frequency signals is crucial. Despite the emergence of alternative technologies, the unique characteristics and performance of TWTAs make them indispensable in these applications, ensuring their continued relevance in the modern world. Solid-state amplifiers have been steadily advancing in recent years and are poised to replace microwave Klystrons in various applications. Klystrons have long been utilized in microwave systems due to their high power output and efficiency. However, solid-state amplifiers offer several advantages that make them a promising alternative. Firstly, solid-state amplifiers are more compact and lightweight compared to Klystrons, making them suitable for space-constrained environments. Additionally, solid-state amplifiers have a longer lifespan and require less maintenance, resulting in reduced operational costs. Furthermore, solid-state amplifiers exhibit excellent linearity and low noise characteristics, ensuring high-quality signal transmission. With ongoing advancements in solid-state technology, it is expected that these amplifiers will soon become the preferred choice, replacing microwave Klystrons in various industrial, scientific, and communication applications. #microwaveovens #travelingwavetubes #klystrons #newopportunities

On December 5, 2022, an indirect drive fusion implosion on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) achieved a target gain G target of 1.5. This is the first laboratory demonstration of exceeding “scientific breakeven” (or G target>1) where 2.05 MJ of 351 nm laser light produced 3.1 MJ of total fusion yield, a result which significantly exceeds the Lawson criterion for fusion ignition as reported in a previous NIF implosion [H. Abu-Shawareb et al. (Indirect Drive ICF Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 075001 (2022)]. This achievement is the culmination of more than five decades of research and gives proof that laboratory fusion, based on fundamental physics principles, is possible. This Letter reports on the target, laser, design, and experimental advancements that led to this result. https://lnkd.in/eH3e5gMN

New instrumentation allows electron magnetic resonance experiments to be performed in the lab’s 36 T Series-Connected Hybrid magnet, unlocking exceptionally high-resolution EMR spectra at the highest magnetic fields.

Very-high energy (>100 MeV/n) #heavyions offer great opportunities for #radiation effects testing, but also come with significant challenges, such as those related to an accurate and thorough beam dosimetry. In our recently published IEEE TNS #OpenAccess paper, Andreas Waets and co-authors make use of solid-state detectors and #FLUKA Monte Carlo simulations to better understand the high-energy heavy ion beam properties and how these evolve as ions penetrate through matter, as is the case for practical #electronics testing scenarios. This experimental part of this work was performed through RADNEXT transnational access to beam time at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, and the analysis was mainly developed in the framework of the HEARTS EU project, aimed at improving the European high-energy heavy ion testing capability for #space applications. https://lnkd.in/d7buhZm4

Editor's Pick: Read Andrea Kritcher and co-author Review Article: Design of first experiment to achieve fusion target gain > 1 "A decades-long quest to achieve fusion energy target gain and ignition in a controlled laboratory experiment, dating back to 1962, has been realized at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on December 5, 2022 [Abu-Shawareb et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 065102 (2024)].... This paper describes the physics (target and laser) design of this platform and follow-on experiments ... as well as explore design modification using radiation hydrodynamic simulations benchmarked against experimental data, which can further improve the performance of this platform."

Seeing is believing - first commercial LT-NVM demo in dry cryostat with integrated RF antenna on NV tip!   Nitrogen vacancy magnetometry (NVM) is a magnetic imaging technique providing ultimate magnetic field sensitivity via optical detection of magnetic stray fields. While the NV sensor is a single atomic-sized magnetic dipole, and therefore offers supreme sensing potential, in practice this potential can be harnessed only in a very stable environment. The attoDRY2200 is the first dry cryostat that offers such ultra-low-vibration conditions, indispensable for low temperature NVM (LT-NVM).   Here, we proudly present a sneak peak into the work of attocube´s Innovation Lab led by our Principal Scientist Dr. Clemens Schäfermeier: while we see substantial interest in commercial LT-NVM and many promises on suitable instrumentation, we have achieved a significant milestone – namely the first real measurement. Below is a hyperspectral NVM image of magnetic domains in Ir/Fe/Co/Pt multilayer at 2.8 K with a commercial NV tip and the accompanying software from our collaborators QZabre LLC. Moreover, this measurement is the first NVM measurement at cryogenic temperatures, where an NV tip with the microwave antenna integrated on the same chip carrier has been used, which offers unique compactness and user-friendliness for ultra-sensitive cryogenic quantum sensing. The tip-sample distance is about 60 nm, which also sets the limit on lateral magnetic resolution, as discernible from the image.   Special thanks to Prof. Anjan Soumyanarayanan (Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), Singapore) for providing the sample, and to our first customer, Prof. Cristian Bonato (Heriot-Watt University, UK), who will soon receive the first instrument based on this development. #cryostat #NVMagnetometry #magneticimaging #quantumsensing

magnetic resonance spectroscopy