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LASL Builds the World’s Smallest Nuclear Reactor

SEP 01, 1967

DOI: 10.1063/1.3034492

Physics Today

You can now build a critical mass with 242 grams of U235 if you do it right. Carroll B. Mills and George A. Jarvis of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory have done it right. By interleaving 0.003‐cm‐thick foils of U235 with 0.316‐cm‐thick polyethylene foils, they achieved criticality with a rectangular solid 15.4 cm square by 12 cm high. Each face of the core was covered with a layer of U235 foil, and the entire core was surrounded with a cubical beryllium reflector 30.4 cm thick.

This Content Appeared In
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Volume 20, Number 9

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