Hiring Institution
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique – CELIA

PhD-Awarding Institutions
Université de Bordeaux
University of New South Wales (UNSW)

Download the full Position Description

Option 1

Experimental study of laser-driven nuclear interactions: focus on energy production

Almost all efforts to realize fusion-based energy generation involve thermally fusing two isotopes of hydrogen – deuterium with tritium (DT fusion). Due to recent advances in laser technology – and in particular chirped pulsed amplification (CPA) – it is now believed that a viable, although difficult, path to fusion can rest on the fusion of hydrogen (H) with boron (B). The HB fusion reaction possesses the key advantage that it is aneutronic i.e. that it does not release energetic neutrons. This would virtually eliminate the deleterious environmental impact associated with neutron radiation (activation of material) and overall greatly enhance operational safety and drastically reduce production of radioactive waste.

The key to unlock the potential of HB fusion is to move away from thermal equilibrium by providing to the reactants the kinetic energy necessary for fusion not through thermal motion but through electromagnetic field acceleration. While petawatt laser systems have already been used for fusion experiments providing interesting results, a strong need exists to explore the wide parameter space (in terms of pulse duration, peak power, focussing geometry) that is needed for optimising the process of particle generation in order to enabling HB fusion in a controlled environment.

This project is in collaboration with the Centro de Laseres PUlsados (CLPU), Salamanca, Spain and HB11 Energy Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia.

Option 2

Experimental study of laser-driven nuclear interactions: focus on radio-isotopes production

Almost all efforts to realize fusion-based energy generation involve thermally fusing two isotopes of hydrogen – deuterium with tritium (DT fusion). Due to recent advances in laser technology – and in particular chirped pulsed amplification (CPA) – it is now believed that a viable, although difficult, path to fusion can rest on the fusion of hydrogen (H) with boron (B). The HB fusion reaction possesses the key advantage that it is aneutronic i.e. that it does not release energetic neutrons but rather high-energy alpha particles. In addition to nuclear fusion for energy, and on a shorter time scale, such alpha particles could be used for the generation of radioisotopes of medical interest.

While petawatt laser systems have already been used for fusion experiments providing interesting results, a strong need exists to explore the wide parameter space (in terms of pulse duration, peak power, focussing geometry) that is needed for optimising the process of particle generation and for allowing the development of a future generation of particle sources and more specifically of alpha particle sources. This opens the possibility of triggering reactions requiring high-energy particles, useful, for instance, for producing radioisotopes of medical interest.

This project is in collaboration with the Centro de Laseres PUlsados (CLPU), Salamanca, Spain and HB11 Energy Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia.

Option 3

Experimental study of laser-driven nuclear interactions: Focus on new, optimised fuel compounds

Due to recent advances in laser technology – and in particular chirped pulsed amplification (CPA) – it is now believed that a viable path to fusion can rest on the fusion of hydrogen (H) with boron (B). In all demonstrations of laser-driven HB fusion reactions, almost no effort has been made to optimise the fuels to achieve the maximum reaction gains. For example, neither simple hydrogen loading (as often used by the fibre optics industry) nor tailor-made boron nitride materials have been investigated so far.

We intend to use newly developed fuels provided by our partner organisation HB11 Energy to conduct the experiments using a fuel that is optimised for the generation and observation of HB fusion reactions where unwanted nuclear reactions (e.g. with nitrogen) could possibly be eliminated. Furthermore, samples including nano-structured boron nitride engineered to contain high quantities of hydrogen, or new materials containing only isotopically pure boron-11 and hydrogen will be investigated. These materials will allow the laser parameters to be modelled and specifically optimised for these targets and provide the best possibility of quantifying the primary HB fusion reactions.

This project is in collaboration with the Centro de Laseres PUlsados (CLPU), Salamanca, Spain and HB11 Energy Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia.

Didier Raffestin
Dimitri Batani
Francois Ladouceur

Nuclear engineering, plasma physics, photonics