Time-of-Flight Shutter Ports for Beam Transfer Across Pressure Zones
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for transmitting energy beams, such as laser or particle beams, from a gaseous atmosphere into a vacuum environment often result in beam distortion, energy loss, and gas transfer, which can hinder applications like inertial fusion reactions where precise energy delivery is crucial.
Innovation Solution
A time-of-flight shutter apparatus that periodically opens and closes to allow energy beams to pass between atmospheres while minimizing gas transfer, using rotating drums and discs with aligned ports to control the beam pathway and gas flow, ensuring the beam reaches the target without significant gas leakage into the vacuum environment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a window is used to transmit the beam between gaseous and vacuum environments, then the beam can be transmitted without direct gas contact, but the window causes beam distortion and energy loss
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the window component entirely from the system. Instead of using a window to separate the gaseous and vacuum environments, the invention uses a time-of-flight shutter mechanism that opens only for brief periods to allow beam passage, eliminating the window and its associated beam distortion and energy loss problems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs a time-of-flight shutter that operates periodically, opening for very short durations (on the order of microseconds or less) to allow the beam to pass from the gaseous to the vacuum environment. This periodic opening closes before gas molecules can travel through, achieving both beam transmission and gas isolation without requiring a window.
2Manufacturing precision
If aerodynamic windows or plasma windows are used to avoid solid material separation, then beam distortion is reduced, but the area is limited to small sizes and energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes aerodynamic windows and plasma windows from the system, replacing them with a mechanical time-of-flight shutter. This eliminates the complexity and energy consumption associated with generating and maintaining aerodynamic or plasma windows while achieving the same goal of minimal beam distortion.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces complex aerodynamic or plasma window systems with a simpler mechanical shutter system. The mechanical shutter uses rotating discs with openings that can be precisely controlled to open and close rapidly, providing a straightforward mechanical solution to the problem of beam transmission with minimal gas transfer.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution effectively transmits energy beams with minimal distortion and gas transfer, maintaining the vacuum environment's pressure and extending the lifespan of fusion systems by reducing optical damage to windows and ensuring reliable periodic ignition in inertial fusion reactions.
Implementation Method 1
A time-of-flight shutter apparatus that periodically opens and closes to allow energy beams to pass between atmospheres while minimizing gas transfer
Data Source
AI summary
A shutter apparatus and method that intermittently establishes a pathway between a first zone having a high pressure atmosphere and a second zone having a low pressure atmosphere. The shutter apparatus includes a first port adjacent to the high pressure atmosphere and a second port adjacent to the low pressure atmosphere. An actuator of the shutter apparatus opens and closes off the first port to the second port to establish the pathway and permit transmission of an energy beam between the zones while minimizing transfer of gas from the high pressure atmosphere to the low pressure atmosphere.