Pushing the limits of existing plasma focus towards 10¹⁶ fusion neutrons with Q = 0.01

Existing conventional megajoule plasma focus machines with 2–3 MA are producing fusion neutron yields of several times 10¹¹ in deuterium operation, the fusion yields predominantly being the beam-gas target. Increasing the current to 10 MA and using 50%–50% D-T mixture will scale the neutron yield towards 10¹⁶ D-T fusion neutrons. In this work, we derive the Lawson criterion for plasma focus devices with a beam-target fusion neutron mechanism, so that we may glimpse what future technological advancements are needed for a break-even Q = 1 plasma focus. We perform numerical experiments with a present-day feasible 0.9 MV, 8.1 MJ, 11 MA machine operating in 100 Torr in 50%–50% D-T mixture. The Lee Code simulation gives a detailed description of the plasma focus dynamics through each phase, and provides plasma and yield parameters which show that out of 1.1 × 10¹⁹ fast beam ions produced in the plasma focus pinch, only 1.24 × 10¹⁴ ions take part in beam-target fusion reactions within the pinch, producing the same number of D-T neutrons. The remnant beam ions, numbering at least 10¹⁹, exit the focus pinch at 1.9 MeV, which is far above the 115 keV ion energy necessary for an optimum beam-target cross-section. We propose to regain the lost fusion rates by using a high-pressure D-T-filled drift-tube to attenuate the energy of the remnant beam ions until they reach the energy for the optimum fusion cross-section. Such a fusion enhancement tube would further harvest beam-target fusion reactions by increasing the interaction path length (1 m) at increased interaction density (6 atm). A gain factor of 300 is conservatively estimated, with a final yield of 3.7 × 10¹⁶ D-T neutrons carrying kinetic energy of 83.6 kJ, demonstrating Q = 0.01.