Eisterer, Michael

Unterrainer, Raphael

Bodenseher, Alexander

2025-02-12T07:52:12Z

2025-02-12T07:52:12Z

2024-10-16

<div class="csl-bib-body"> <div class="csl-entry">Eisterer, M., Unterrainer, R., &#38; Bodenseher, A. (2024, October 16). <i>Radiation issues for high-temperature superconductors in compact fusion reactors</i> [Presentation]. Seminar organized by the MIT student section of the Americain Nuclear Society 2024, Massachusetts, United States of America (the).</div> </div>

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12708/211666

Nuclear fusion promises to be a practically inexhaustible energy source and research on its exploitation started in the 1940s, but turned out to be challenging. Two different approaches to create a plasma hot and dense enough to produce more energy by fusion reactions than required for its generation were followed since the very beginning: The first being inertial confinement that mimics the mechanism in nuclear weapons. The nuclear fuel is heated and compacted extremely fast resulting in a very dense plasma with a high fusion rate limited to the timescale the plasma needs to expand during the resulting explosion. Recently, a net energy gain, where the fusion energy exceeded the energy deposited in the nuclear fuel (Q>1) was achieved for the first time. The second approach relies on a magnetic confinement of the charged particles and can in principle lead to a continuously burning plasma. However, a net energy gain was not realized so far. In both cases, the progress was continuous but slow, since there was no immediate need for fusion power plants. The first fusion device aiming at a useful energy gain (ITER, Q ≈ 10) has been under construction for many years now and it will take more than another decade until experiments with a burning plasma will start. Europe plans a first demonstration reactor (DEMO) producing electricity for the second half of this century. The situation changed with the broad public awareness of the climate change creating an immediate need for alternative energy sources. Fusion was reconsidered but the existing programs were obviously too slow to face the challenge; thus new, privately funded initiatives took the stage. The vast majority of these projects is based on the idea to increase the magnetic field for confinement, which is only possible by using high temperature superconductors. A higher magnetic field enhances the power density of the burning plasma and enables much compacter designs, which in turn promises a significant cost reduction and commercial viability of fusion power plants. However, the increased power density leads to other challenges, among them the increased neutron (and heat flux) density. A small fraction of the neutrons will reach the superconducting magnets degrading their performance and hence limiting their lifetime. I will follow the journey of the neutrons from their birth in the plasma to the magnets and discuss the damage production, the resulting defect structure and the influence on the properties of the the superconductor. The change of superconducting properties will be demonstrated by results of neutron irradiation experiments on high temperature superconducting tapes performed at the TRIGA reactor in Vienna. The introduced defects have a positive effect on the critical current by improving pinning but the enhanced scattering degrade the transition temperature and the superfluid density because scattering is pair breaking in d-wave superconductors. The competition between improved pinning, which dominates at low neutron fluences, and the degrading scattering leads to a peak in the critical current. While the degradation can be modelled due to its universal behavior, the change in pinning depends on the pristine defect structure of the tape and the energy of the incident particles. The implication for the lifetime of conventional and compact fusion reactor concepts will be compared. Finally, possible mitigation strategies will be discussed.

European Commission

en

Superconductivity

Radiation Effects

Nuclear Fusion

Critical Currents

Radiation issues for high-temperature superconductors in compact fusion reactors

Presentation

Vortrag

0000000000

Presentation

invited

High-temperature superconducting materials for fusion magnets. The partner project is KKKÖ ME

M2

E3

M8

Materials Characterization

Climate Neutral, Renewable and Conventional Energy Supply Systems

Structure-Property Relationsship

30

50

20

E141-06 - Forschungsbereich Low Temperature Physics and Superconductivity

0000-0002-7160-7331

0000-0002-8720-9004

0000-0002-2959-1962

Seminar organized by the MIT student section of the Americain Nuclear Society 2024

26-10-2024

26-10-2024

Hybrid

Event for scientific audience

Massachusetts

US

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Eisterer, Michael

Physik, Astronomie

1030

100

en

conference presentation

none

no Fulltext

Publications

http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/R60J-J5BD

E141-06 - Forschungsbereich Low Temperature Physics and Superconductivity

E141-06 - Forschungsbereich Low Temperature Physics and Superconductivity

E141-06 - Forschungsbereich Low Temperature Physics and Superconductivity

0000-0002-7160-7331

0000-0002-8720-9004

0000-0002-2959-1962

E141 - Atominstitut

E141 - Atominstitut

E141 - Atominstitut

European Commission

0000000000