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Quantum Tunneling
Atkinson and Houtermans provide the first calculations of the rate of nuclear fusion in stars. Based on Gamow's tunnelling, they show fusion can occur at lower energies than previously known. When used with Eddington's calculations of the required fusion rates in stars, their calculations tell us this would occur at the lower temperatures that were being measured.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_nuclear_fusion#1920s -
Discovering Nuclear Fusion
In the 1930’s, scientists, particularly Hans Bethe, discovered that nuclear fusion was possible and that it was the energy source for the sun.
https://lppfusion.com/fusion-power/brief-history-of-fusion-power/ -
Helium-3 and Tritium
Using an upated version of the equipment firing deuterium rather than hydrogen, Mark Oliphant discovered helium-3 and tritium, and that heavy hydrogen nuclei could be made to react with each other. This is the first direct demonstration of fusion in the lab. -
Magnetic Confinement
Beginning in the 1940’s researchers sought to contain the hot plasma with magnetic fields, using, for example, the pinch effect where electric currents moving in the same direction attract each other through their magnetic fields. This approach was called “magnetic confinement”.
https://lppfusion.com/fusion-power/brief-history-of-fusion-power/ -
Thermonuclear Weapons
By the mid-1950’s administrators and scientists alike were convinced that controlled fusion research had no military applications, and in particular had nothing to do with the development of thermonuclear weapons. The first thermonuclear weapons had been detonated in the early 1950’s.
https://lppfusion.com/fusion-power/brief-history-of-fusion-power/ -
Hydrogen Bomb
Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam develop the Teller-Ulam design for the hydrogen bomb
https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/timeline-of-fusion -
Inertial Confinement
Starting in the 1960’s, after the invention of the laser, other researchers sought to heat fuels with a laser so suddenly that the plasma would not have time to escape before it was burned in the fusion reaction. It would be trapped by its own inertia. This newer approach was thus named ”inertial confinement”.
https://lppfusion.com/fusion-power/brief-history-of-fusion-power/ -
Tokamak
But in the mid-1970’s administrators in the United States decided to focus all magnetic confinement work on a single device, the tokamak, which had been invented in the Soviet Union. In part, this decision was due to the effort to portray fusion as a short-term solution to the oil crisis of the early 1970’s, requiring only engineering development.
https://lppfusion.com/fusion-power/brief-history-of-fusion-power/ -
Aneutronic Fusion
In 1980 significant progress was made, but the plasmas remained far from stable. In the same period, despite the very small funding devoted to alternative approaches, researchers demonstrated that several devices including the plasma focus, initial electrostatic confinement and field reversed configuration could, in theory, achieve the high temperatures needed for aneutronic fusion.
https://lppfusion.com/fusion-power/brief-history-of-fusion-power/ -
Neutral Beam Injector
The START Tokamak fusion experiment begins in Culham. The experiment would eventually achieve a record beta (plasma pressure compared to magnetic field pressure) of 40% using a neutral beam injector. It was the first design that adapted the conventional toroidal fusion experiments into a tighter spherical design
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_nuclear_fusion#2000s -
Neutrino
Beginning in 2000 they found evidence to support the idea that the neutrinos from the sun change their "type" from the one type produced in the solar core to one of the three types found in nature. This "neutrino" oscillation explains why we see 1/3 of the expected number. Prior to this, solar neutrino telescopes were detecting only one type of neutrino.
http://www.kcvs.ca/martin/astro/au/unit3/72/chp7_2.html
