Fusor

Common card · No. 302187

A fusor is a device that uses an electric field to heat ions to a temperature at which they undergo nuclear fusion. The machine induces a voltage between two metal cages inside a vacuum. Positive ions fall down this voltage drop, building up speed. If they collide in the center, they can fuse. This is one kind of an inertial electrostatic confinement device – the type studied in a branch of fusion research. A Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor is the most common type of fusor. This design came from work by Philo T. Farnsworth in 1964 and Robert L. Hirsch in 1967. A variant type of fusor had been proposed previously by William Elmore, James L. Tuck, and Ken Watson at the Los Alamos National Laboratory though they never built the machine. Fusors have been built by various institutions. These include academic institutions such as the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and government entities, such as the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the Turkish Atomic...

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