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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
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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.
Xiaohua Cao, Benfu Yang, Huajin Tan, Jingping Wan, Changyong Jiang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 892-896
Material Interaction and Permeation | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22713
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The adsorption and desorption behaviors of tritium on the surfaces of stainless steel, copper, molybdenum and Kovar were studied. After the exposure in tritium gas ( 9 kPa gaseous tritium, 2 minutes exposure at 873 K and 40 minutes cooling ), the tritium desorbed at room temperature and during heating up to 1123 K and total sorbed tritium of the samples were measured. The results showed that the desorbed tritium at room temperature was only 1∼6% of total sorbed tritium and its amount order was: Kovar >copper > stainless steel > molybdenum. The total desorbed tritium was ranging from 2 to 22 MBq/cm2, the largest is for Kovar and the smallest is for stainless steel. The tritium released from these materials at room temperature and during heating was mostly in the form of HTO. The thermo-desorption spectra of these materials were obtained. It was found that at least 5, 3, 3, 4 sorption states of tritium exist in the exposed Kovar, molybdenum, copper and stainless steel samples respectively. Doping 1% hydrogen in the carrying gas of helium during the thermo-desorption had rather effect on this process.
