Nuclear Chain Reaction - Nuclear Weapons Application of Neutron Multiplication - Predetonation

Predetonation

Detonation of a nuclear weapon involves bringing fissile material into its optimal supercritical state very rapidly. During part of this process, the assembly is supercritical, but not yet in an optimal state for a chain reaction. Free neutrons, in particular from spontaneous fissions, can cause the device to undergo a preliminary chain reaction that destroys the fissile material before it is ready to produce a large explosion, which is known as predetonation. To keep the probability of predetonation low, the duration of the non-optimal assembly period is minimized and fissile and other materials are used which have low spontaneous fission rates. In fact, the combination of materials has to be such that it is unlikely that there is even a single spontaneous fission during the period of supercritical assembly. In particular, the gun method cannot be used with plutonium (see nuclear weapon design).