When this beam struck a target of erbium deuteride, the team detected neutrons coming from the target with precisely the energy expected if they were generated by the nuclear fusion of two deuteriumnuclei.
Since the late 1950s, U.K. scientists have been attempting to achieve the fusion of hydrogen nuclei (tritum and deuterium) using magnetic confinement (MCF).
Dr Seaborg created plutonium for the first time in 1940, using the cyclotron to shoot deuterium ions into uranium atoms so fast that their nuclei merged.