Could we construct an anti-matter weapon today, if we could get the antimatter?

[Der_Trihs]

I have a problem and a solution ( to a different problem ).

Problem : To my knowledge, no one has yet created a perfect vacuum; I can’t provide a cite, but I heard it claimed years ago that a gram of antimatter in the best vacuum produceable would emit enough radiation to kill everyone within half a mile. There’s still to many particles in even the best modern vacuums, so researching improved versions would be a priority.

@scr4

Even if you solve the problem of containment, there’s the difficult problem of getting enough antimatter to react at once. If you just released antimatter into the air, or brought it to contact with a solid matter, the first milligram of antimatter to react would scatter the rest of it in every which direction. It probably won’t be a very effective explosion, just a lot of heat.

Why not use the antimatter as a “booster stage” to a fission bomb, just like with thermonuclear weapons ? I can’t think of a practical faster way to mix matter and antimatter than that.