Japanese nuclear weapons programs

Common card · No. 266876

During World War II, the Empire of Japan had several programs exploring the use of nuclear fission for military technology, including nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Like the similar wartime programs in Nazi Germany, they were comparatively small, suffered from Allied air raids, shortages, disarray, and did not progress beyond the laboratory stage. The Imperial Japanese Army initiated the "Ni-Go Project" for nuclear weapons at the RIKEN institute, led by physicist Yoshio Nishina. Work was limited to cyclotron research, production of small quantities of uranium hexafluoride, and an unsuccessful attempt to enrich it via thermal diffusion in a Clusius tube. The Imperial Japanese Navy also supported the "F-Go Project", at Kyoto Imperial University, led by physicist Bunsaku Arakatsu and involving Hideki Yukawa. This group focused on designing an ultracentrifuge to enrich uranium hexafluoride, but did not construct any before the end of the war. Japan has not since had a nuclear weapons...

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