Focus fusion

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Focus Fusion takes place in a Dense Plasma Focus produced by a Plasma Focus Device (PFD).

A PFD typically consists of two coaxial cylindrical electrodes made from copper or beryllium and housed in a vacuum chamber containing a low-pressure gas, which is used as the reactor fuel. One end of the coaxial assembly is "closed off" between the electrodes with a metal disc and an insulating sleeve (typically Pyrex).

A brief but intense electrical pulse is applied across the electrodes, producing heating and a magnetic field.

The current forms the hot gas into many minuscule vortices perpendicular to the surfaces of the electrodes, which then migrate to the end of the inner electrode (Jacob's Ladder style) to pinch-and-twist off as tiny (micrometre scale) balls of plasma called plasmoids. The macro structure of the plasma as it exits the open end of the assembly is roughly like an umbrella or half of a torus.^{[citation needed]}

As the power pulse collapses, the magnetic fields collapse with it, forming two opposing beams along the axis of the electrodes, one of electrons and one of positive ions. The electron beam collides with the plasmoid, heating it to fusion temperatures which in an appropriate gas (a boron and hydrogen mix in the Focus Fusion Society design) will in principle yield more energy in the beams than was input to form them.^{[citation needed]}

See aneutronic fusion for a more in-depth analysis of the proton-boron reaction.