Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear Fusion

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced that an experiment carried out in its National Ignition Facility has made a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research.

Concept –

• Nuclear Fusion is defined as the combining of two lighter nuclei into a heavier one.
• Such nuclear fusion reactions are the source of energy in the Sun and other stars.
• It takes considerable energy to force the nuclei to fuse. The conditions needed for this process are extreme millions of degrees of temperature and millions of pascals of pressure.
• The hydrogen bomb is based on a thermonuclear fusion However, a nuclear bomb based on the fission of uranium or plutonium is placed at the core of the hydrogen bomb to provide initial energy.