Highly Nuclear-Spin-Polarized Deuterium Atoms from the UV Photodissociation of Deuterium Iodide.

We report a novel highly spin-polarized deuterium (SPD) source, via the photodissociation of deuterium iodide at 270 nm. I(P-2(3/2)) photofragments are ionized with m-state selectivity, and their velocity distribution measured via velocity-map slice imaging, from which the D polarization is determined. The process produces similar to 100% electronically polarized D at the time of dissociation, which is then converted to similar to 60% nuclear D polarization after similar to 1.6 ns. These production times for SPD allow collision-limited densities of similar to 10(18) cm(-3) and at production rates of similar to 10(21) s(-1) which are 10(6) and 10(4) times higher than conventional (Stern-Gerlach separation) methods, respectively. We discuss the production of SPD beams, and combining high-density SPD with laser fusion, to investigate polarized D-T, D-He-3, and D-D fusion.