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Whilst the world awaits news from the monitoring stations of the IAEA
whether North Korea's claims are true or not, one possibility occurred to
me that the North Korean detonation way be what is referred to as
a "boosted" fission device.
Using tritium and deuterium gasses inside a fission device, one can boost
its performance through the release of fast neutrons. Much of the plutonium
or uranium in a nuclear weapon can fail to fission before the device blows
itself apart and boosting can achieve a higher yield. Some of the tritium
and deuterium mixture can undergo fusion and these devices were sometimes
referred to as fission-fusion-fission weapons.
This can also result in a smaller device that is much easier to weaponize
and deliver.
The energy released by the fusion stage of such devices was relatively
negligible. It's job was to aid in the fission efficiency.
The US underwent a brief period where they developed and tested them
before they went on to build the first full-scale H-bombs. Boosting is
also employed in full-scale staged thermo-nuclear weapons.
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