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Lighting a Sun on Earth
Portrait of a man-made sun: Exposed to trillions of watts of laser light for less than a
billionth of a second, heavy hydrogen atoms are compressed more than thirty times,
resulting in fusion. This photograph of the moment of implosion .was taken by an X-ray
pinhole camera at the University's Laboratory for Laser Energehcs.
In 1972, the College of Engineering and
Applied Science began the Laser Fusion
Feasibility Project at the Laboratory for
Laser Energetics. This project is a unique
partnership of the University, industry, and
state andfederal governments. Its members
include Exxon, General Electric, Standard
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Oil of Oh£o, Northeast Utilities, Empire
State Electric Energy Research Corporation,
and the New York State Research and
Development Authority. The United States
Department of Energy allocated funds for
building the OMEGA laser system.
If we could imitate the
process by which the sun
generates its energy, we might
be able to solve all of our
earthly energy problems for
all time to come. Some
think the answer lies in
harnessing the powerful light
of lasers. A team of University
of Rochester people is trying
to find out.
Every gallon of seawater, believe it
or not, packs the energy potential of
350 gallons of gasoline.
That's because one in every 30,000
atoms of hydrogen in seawater contains
a neutron in its nucleus. When
two of these "heavy hydrogen" atoms
are squeezed together and heated,
they fuse into the element helium and
liberate enormous amounts of energy.
That's the way the ·sun makes its
energy, and scientists are trying to
develop systems to mimic the solar
process on earth. Fusion has been
hailed as the ultimate answer to our
planet's energy problems because
there's more than a billion years'
supply of heavy hydrogen in the
oceans.
Fusion research is in its infancy.
While we can make hydrogen atoms
fuse, we can't yet get as much energy
out of the reaction as we put in.
The University of Rochester's
Laboratory for Laser Energetics has
recently taken two giant steps toward
the break-even point, stimulating
visions of fusion plants making steam
to turn turbines.
The laboratory is using highpowered
lasers to blast dust-speck size
spheres filled with deuterium and
tritium, two forms of heavy
hydrogen, creating temperatures of
up to 67 million degrees Celsius. Exposed
to trillions of watts of laser
light for less than a billionth of a
second, the atoms are compressed