Abstract:  Nuclear fusion promises abundant, inexpensive electricity with no radioactive byproducts or greenhouse gas emissions. The process of harnessing energy from nuclear fusion emulates solar processes, where hydrogen atoms are fused together at high temperature and pressure to form heavier atoms in a process that releases a small amount of energy per fusion reaction. While recent breakthroughs in fusion technology have been made, there are a number of challenges yet to be solved. Some of these challenges are related to the materials needed to build a future reactor. 

In particular, the initial reactors will likely rely on fusion between two heavy isotopes of hydrogen – deuterium and tritium – to make fusion reactions more probable. Tritium, which has a nucleus of 1 proton and 2 neutrons, is radioactive, and of negligible abundance naturally on earth. Its radioactivity, combined with its small size and affinity for water, make handling tritium especially difficult. In this talk I will summarize LLE’s efforts to study nuclear fusion by a technique called inertial confinement fusion, discuss some of the material-science challenges related to tritium, and describe my own research developing an atomic layer deposition system for tritium permeation and isotope separation applications.