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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
K. Niu, S. Kawata
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 11 | Number 2 | March 1987 | Pages 365-373
Technical Paper | Fusion Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/FST87-A25014
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Twelve Marx generators, with a total stored energy of 26.4 MJ and a diode voltage of 10 or 5 MV, supply the energy to diodes to extract proton beams. A combination of two types of diodes is used. One diode type is insulated by the radial magnetic field and extracts the rotating ring beam. The other type is the ordinary magnetically insulated one, from which the proton beam fills the inner hollow part of the rotating beam. The argon gas filling the reactor cavity neutralizes the charge of the proton beams, but does not neutralize the current of the beams. The proton beam pinches to a small radius by the azimuthal magnetic field, and its propagation is stabilized by the axial magnetic field. The cryogenic 6-mm-radius hollow shell target consists of three layers of lead, aluminum, and deuterium-tritium fuel. The target is imposed by a biased voltage of −1 MV in order to focus the proton beams on the target surface. The ion temperature and pR of the fuel after the target implosion reach 4.2 keVand 7.0 g/cm2, respectively. Thus the 2.5-GJ output energy is released from a target. The reactor is an ADLIB type, which consists of an inner rotating cylinder and an outer fixed cylinder. Inside the inner rotating cylinder, the Flibe flows, acting as coolant and tritium breeder. The net plant efficiency is expected to be 33%, and the 800-MW(electric) net power can be supplied from one reactor with a 1-Hz operation frequency.