For overcoming the Coulomb barrier for fusion, methods other than heating the fusible material have been suggested. For example, if you were to use two particle accelerators to accelerate two beams of deuterons directly toward each other so as to collide head-on, (a) what voltage would each accelerator require in order for the colliding deuterons to overcome the Coulomb barrier? (b) Why do you suppose this method is not presently used?
Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear fusion is a type of nuclear reaction. In nuclear fusion, two or more than two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus. During this process, an enormous amount of energy is released. This energy is called nuclear energy. Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the sun and stars.
Fusion Bomb
A fusion bomb is also known as a thermonuclear bomb or hydrogen bomb which releases a large amount of explosive energy during a nuclear chain reaction when the lighter nuclei in it, combine to form heavier nuclei, and a large amount of radiation is released. It is an uncontrolled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction where isotopes of hydrogen combine under very high temperature to form helium. They work on the principle of operation of atomic fusion. The isotopes of Hydrogen are deuterium and tritium, where they combine their masses and have greater mass than the product nuclei, get heated at high temperatures, and releases energy.
For overcoming the Coulomb barrier for fusion, methods
other than heating the fusible material have been suggested. For
example, if you were to use two particle accelerators to accelerate
two beams of deuterons directly toward each other so as to collide
head-on, (a) what voltage would each accelerator require in order
for the colliding deuterons to overcome the Coulomb barrier? (b)
Why do you suppose this method is not presently used?
In the given case, the relation between the kinetic energy and the potential energy will be,
The expression for the potential energy for two deuterons will be,
The value for the voltage needed to accelerate each deuteron from rest to that value of K is 170kV.
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