From: [email protected]
Very interesting. Can such a device convert terahertz
radiation into DC power?
No.
An oversimplification of Cuccia coupling (this is from memory so it may not
be accurate) is this: microwaves couple to electrons at very high efficiency
and UV couples to microwaves at very high efficiency. UV does not couple to
electrons directly at high efficiency - therefore another wave geometry must
act as the intermediary. AFAIK terahertz doesn't couple.
If you have an intense source of UV in a plasma (as Mills does) then it is
possible to use a photocell for conversion, but the plasma also has a lot of
+ions which destroy the photocell. A protective window is impossible since
UV is absorbed by the window.
Thus, one way to do this kind of direct conversion is to have a microwave
powered plasma reactor with a bucking field as in the Russian CWC device ...
in which electrons and positive ions are separated magnetically BUT in
addition, the UV accelerates the electrons by Cuccia coupling to the
microwaves. It is a hybrid.
Microwaves can be generated very efficiently in an external device such as a
microtron, so this helps. In the end, you could apply a power input say 1.3
kW of electricity to generate 1 kW of microwaves, and provide an electron
beam of 300 watts which combine to create a plasma with protons and
electrons being the prime charge carriers. The electrons will come out of
the plasma with thermal energy of 10 kW due to the bucking field - and thus
the gyrotron is very efficient - so in the end we get 6 kW of DC
electricity... at least that is "on paper".
Thus the 1.6 kW is recycled back to make the microwaves and e-beam, and
there is a net energy of 4.4 kW electrical ...all of which originally
started out as UV photons as the OU component, but is now DC current with
about 4 kW of waste heat.
It is beautiful on paper, but how does it work out in practice?
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