Word: hydrogenate
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...highly compressed and confined inside the metal. They can also be dispersed through it in some chemical or mechanical way. When the detonator explodes in such a rig, the tritium reacts, turning into helium and raising the temperature of the explosion. Such "fusion-boosted" detonators are much discussed among hydrogen-bomb connoisseurs. The long series of "nuclear devices" that the Atomic Energy Commission tested in the Pacific and Nevada may have included many experiments with fusion boosting...
...early postwar period, the prospects for fusion did not look very good. The available light elements-lithium, ordinary hydrogen and deuterium (heavy hydrogen)-seemed to require more heat than could be provided by the first atom bombs. The third hydrogen isotope, tritium, looked more promising. A mixture of tritium (H³) and deuterium (H²) will ignite at a comparatively low temperature, turning into helium (He4) and a free neutron, and giving a big yield of energy...
GUESSING GAME During the last month or so, there has been a storm of guessing about how hydrogen bombs are made. Every non-insider's guess is surely wrong in some particular. In the early days of nuclear energy, only two main ingredients, U-235 and plutonium, were available to the bombmakers, and both behaved about the same. Now the situation is more complicated. Many light isotopes are suitable for fusion, and under the conditions in an exploding bomb, they may react with one another in many different ways. They also react with the products, e.g., neutrons, given...
...high as possible. One way to do this is to make the fission reaction more efficient. The early bombs "burned" only a fraction of their fissionable material. As they were improved, they burned more of it and reached higher temperatures. The improved bombs, even though not designed with hydrogen bombs in mind, were therefore more effective as detonators...
...bomb, the main charge is made up of liquefied hydrogen isotopes: tritium and deuterium. The precious tritium is the most reactive. It combines readily with deuterium, and the energy that results raises the temperature sufficiently to make deuterium nuclei combine in pairs, forming helium and giving off more energy...