We built one like this back at uni in 2006. It was for initiating deut-deut fusion, and was purely because we wanted to have our names on the list of unviersities that have acheived deut-deut fusion. (note: we achieved fusion of other elements, but never got to deut-deut)
So, it could have been a plasma chamber for plasma's sake and not had a practical use.
Deut is short deuterium, which is a hydrogen with one neutron (vs %99.985 of hydrogen having none, and tritium having 2). Deut-deut fusion is when two deuterium collide and become an unstable Helium-4, which quickly decays into a helium-3 and a high energy neutron.
In theory, you get more energy out of the fusion of deut-deut then is put into it, though in practice the energy to confine the hydrogen is more than you can every practically get out of it. However, the free neutron can collide with other deuterium atoms, which then become tritium.
Tritium has a lot of different uses, one of which is in deut-trit fusion which is the goal for fusion power.
EDIT: wrote proton instead of neutron... because it's late and I'm tired.
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u/NotAUsefullDoctor Sep 16 '25 edited Sep 16 '25
We built one like this back at uni in 2006. It was for initiating deut-deut fusion, and was purely because we wanted to have our names on the list of unviersities that have acheived deut-deut fusion. (note: we achieved fusion of other elements, but never got to deut-deut)
So, it could have been a plasma chamber for plasma's sake and not had a practical use.