Optical enhancement cavity with a cavity dumper device for treatment of nuclear waste
AssigneeBlue Laser Fusion, Inc.
InventorsShuji NAKAMURA, Hiroaki OHTA, Trevor COHEN, Paul Morgan PATTISON, Atsushi SUNAHARA
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Abstract
In an example, the present invention provides a system including a light source configured to generate a laser. The system has an optical enhancement cavity coupled to the light source and configured to increase an intensity of the laser and a cavity dumper coupled to the optical enhancement cavity. The system has an acoustic wave coupled to the cavity dumper to diffract the laser. The system has a reactor for irradiating a by-product of a nuclear fission process.
Claims25
A laser generation system, the system comprising:
- an optical enhancement cavity (OEC) maintained in a vacuum of 300 Torr or less and characterized by a length of 0.1 meters to 1 kilometers, the optical enhancement cavity being configured to increase an intensity of a laser beam comprising a continuous wave (CW) or a pulse from an initial energy power intensity to a higher energy power intensity propagating on a first optical path inside of the optical enhancement cavity by circulating at least a portion of the laser beam from a light source having a CW or a pulse energy output on the first optical path;
- an optical path modification device coupled to the optical cavity, the optical path modification device being configured to repeatedly change a propagation of the laser beam propagating on the first optical path to cause the laser beam propagating on the first optical path to change in direction to a second optical path outside of the optical enhancement cavity and outside of the first optical path;
- a timing device configured having a predetermined frequency to adjust the optical path modification device such that the timing device is configured to adjust the optical path modification device after a predetermined number of cycles of the laser beam between at least the pair of mirrors such that each cycle of the laser beam progressively increases an intensity of the CW or the pulse of the laser beam;
- and
- a driver device coupled to the timing device and the optical path modification device being configured such that an optical element of a Distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR) mirror is capable of extracting the laser beam by diffracting the laser beam caused by an acoustic wave inside of the DBR mirror, thereby causing the laser beam propagating on the first optical path to change direction to the second optical path;
- a chamber coupled to the second optical path, the chamber comprising a by-product of a nuclear fission process such that the by-product is irradiated using at least gamma rays by the laser beam to change a state of the by-product from a first state to a second state.
A method of treating a by-product of a fission process, the method comprising:
- generating a plurality of laser beams;
- increasing an intensity of the laser beam using a coherent beam combining process;
- injecting the laser beam into an optical enhancement cavity comprising a pair of mirror devices;
- circulating the laser beam between the pair of mirrors to increase an intensity of the laser beam from a first intensity to an Nth intensity, where Nis ten times the first intensity;
- extracting the laser beam from the optical enhancement cavity and directing the laser beam to a by-product of a nuclear fission process;
- and
- changing a state of the by-product from a first state to a second state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.