Magnetically insulated gigavolt potential capacitor - a compact inertial fusion driver

It is proposed to charge a magnetically levitated conductor in ultrahigh vacuum up to high electrostatic potentials through charged macroparticles accelerated to several 100 m/sec. Because the conductor is both levitated and magnetically insulated, gigavolt potentials can possibly be reached. By discharging this kind of levitated and magnetically insulated capacitor, very large pulsed power is attainable. Because of the high pulsed power combined with its large energy storage capacity, the proposed capacitor would be an ideal compact driver for inertial confinement fusion by intense ion beams. (orig.)