Talk:Separation of isotopes by laser excitation

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

So how does it work?

This doesn't seem to be addressed... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.62.206.246 (talk) 17:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

SILEX in the context of The Third Nuclear Age

A thoughtful analytical piece called The Third Nuclear Age says quite a bit about SILEX; published April 13, 2010 on Belmont Club, by Pajamas Media. N2e (talk) 18:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

SILEX transferred to the US in 1998, and classified in 2001

Apparently, the process was transferred to the control of the United States government in 2001 and was subsequently classified:

One of its developers, Dr. Francis Slakey said:

“This next generation technology is so efficient and so small that we would no longer be able to see it with our satellites and we would no longer be able to detect whether there was some power source going into it, because it uses so little power … Historically every enrichment technology – that is every technology that has been used to develop nuclear fuel, every single one of them – has proliferated despite best efforts to keep the secret … Those rogue countries that may pursue a technology don’t do it unless it’s been industrially proven, and so prior to that if it’s just bench science or R and D [research and development], they don’t go that path.”

Under a deal with the US in 1998, development of the technology was transferred to the United States and in 2001 SILEX was classified.

Now General Electric Hitachi wants a licence from US regulators to build the world’s first SILEX plant in North Carolina.

That's from The Third Nuclear Age. The transfer of the technology to the US, and the subsequent classification of the technology, is not discussed in the Wikipedia article. Should it be? N2e (talk) 00:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Fuß (now quoted in the article) said in 2015 that hte fears were were based on "exaggerations of marketing". By comparing the claims of GLE with actual centrifuge plants, he showed that the size, costs, time for construction etc. are similar for the two methods (though Silex seems to still need some development. Dolorpiedo (talk) 17:05, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Los Alamos Reference

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs4/silex.pdf

This has some information that should be added. I am not an expert in the field so I can not write it.

Perhaps: The process requires a high power Q-switched CO2 laser running at 10.8 um. The beam is passed through a Raman Cell many times filled with ParaHydrogen to lower the frequency by a non-linear process to 16 um. This beam is then transfered into a tank of Uranium Hexaflouride where the U235 is excited while the U238 is left in the unexcited state. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colinsk (talk • contribs) 09:35, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Now quoted (Lyman ...). Lyman described a preliminar setup. The description in the article is based on more recent work (Fuß, Snyder, Makarov). Dolorpiedo (talk) 17:09, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

History

The process is already known since the 1970s.--Fmrauch (talk) 21:19, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Vandalism?

Did anyone else notice that the Process section indicates the use of Star Trekkian dilithium crystals; accelerates the gas to warp 2; and uses tractor beams?