The Z machine, over 3 milliard degrees

The thread liner of the Z pinch machine of the Sandia laboratories is made of 1 or 2 concentric rings of 240 parallel stainless steel threads. The Z pinch machine delivers an electrical current of 70.000 ampere in each thread for a fraction of a second which generates powerful Laplace forces that make the threads converge toward the central axis at a speed of 400 km/s. During the implosion an hyperdense metal plasma is produced along the axis and calculations deduced from spectroscopy measurements show that the metal ion temperature can reach 3.7 109 degrees which is far more than the temperature expected in ITER. This technical breakthrough opens the way to a new type of fusion: the neutron-less fusion in which B11 and H1 nuclei merge to produce 3 He4 nuclei while releasing 8.4 MeV. (A.C.)