Three California inventors, Robert Budica, James Herzberg and Frank Chandler, filed a patent on behalf of
Most modern jets are powered by turbofan engines which means the air comes into the core of the engine and is compressed to power the fan. The compressed air creates thrust which is one of the elements a jet needs to fly - the others being lift, drag and weight.
The patent, filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office on June 30, 2015, is a laser powered propulsion system.
Illustration from the US Patent and Trademark Office for the Boing Laser Propulsion System patent... [+]
The new jet engine patent is centered around the firing of high-powered lasers at radioactive material in order to vaporize that material to create a fusion reaction or small nuclear explosion. The exhaust by-products of that explosion (Hydrogen) are discharged from the back of the engine which produces thrust and causes the engine to be propelled forward.
According to the patent however, the engine can also simultaneously harvest heat and in theory, the engine could be self-sustaining.
How? The engine's thruster chamber is coated in uranium 238 which reacts with the high-energy neutrons produced by the fusion reaction and generates heat. On the other side of that chamber wall, heat-energized coolant would pick up this heat and be sent through a turbine to make electricity to power the engine's lasers.
No one is building this yet, but the patent lays the groundwork for a new kind of jet engine which could change the way jet engines are designed in the future.
