Word: tritium
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FUSION BOOST Another trick available to researchers is to place in the fissionable core a small amount of highly reactive tritium, perhaps mixed with deuterium. Both the isotopes are light gases, and so they can be 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...
...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...
Since deuterium is comparatively cheap and easily obtained, a practical "wet" bomb should contain very little tritium. But even the best of this type is cumbersome and impractical. Liquefied hydrogen isotopes must be kept under high pressure at a temperature close to absolute zero. They must be carefully insulated. If held for long periods, they must be cooled mechanically to keep them from vaporizing and rupturing their container. Outside scientists say that the "device" exploded on Eniwetok in 1952 was "wet," and that it weighed, with its necessary insulation and cooling equipment, more than 65 tons. If so, it could...
...helium (He4) and giving off a flood of energy. Since helium is the final product, the well-designed bomb should produce as much of it as possible, but side reactions are likely. Neutrons from the reacting plutonium are apt to hit lithium atoms, turning them into helium and tritium (H³). Tritium may hit deuterium, yielding helium and a free neutron. The bomb-com-pounders may include other ingredients (e.g., lithium seven and ordinary hydrogen), and these will react in characteristic ways...
...question: How much original tritium must the dry bomb contain? It may be possible to use none of it except in the boosted detonator, but some guessers believe that a small amount of tritium in the main charge is needed to promote the reaction. It will tend to re-create itself, acting like a chemical catalyst. Other guessers think that free neutrons from the detonator will create enough tritium (by combining with lithium six) to keep the reaction going at full speed...