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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
C. H. Skinner, C. A. Gentile, R. Doerner
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 1 | July 2013 | Pages 1-7
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A17041
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Practical methods to clean ITER's diagnostic mirrors will be essential to ITER's plasma operations. We report on laser cleaning of candidate ITER single-crystal molybdenum mirrors that were plasma coated with either carbon or beryllium films 150 to 420 nm thick. A pulsed Nd laser beam was focused to 1 to 2 J/cm2 and scanned at various speeds across the surface of a mirror. The cleaning effect was measured with a novel method that combined microscopic imaging and reflectivity measurements in the red, green, and blue spectral regions and at the H-alpha and H-beta wavelengths. No damage of the molybdenum mirror substrates was observed at the range of laser intensities used. For carbon-coated mirrors, complete removal of the film and restoration of the reflectivity were measured in some conditions. For the beryllium-coated mirrors, restoration of reflectivity has so far been incomplete. Heat transfer calculations suggest a shorter, [approximately]5-ns laser pulse would be optimal.