Attempting to tame plasmas in fusion

Attempting to tame plasmas in fusion

Phys.org October 2, 2018, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Computer simulations show that the Richtmyer–Meshkov instability (left) can be suppressed with a saddle-shaped magnetic field (right). Credit: Matter and Radiation at Extremes Nuclear fusion, the release of energy when light atomic nuclei merge, is touted as a carbon-free solution to global energy requirements. … Read more

Plasma impurities observed by a pulse height analysis diagnostic during the divertor campaign of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator

Plasma impurities observed by a pulse height analysis diagnostic during the divertor campaign of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator

AIP Published Online: 27 September 2018 | Accepted: July 2018 Review of Scientific Instruments 89, 10F111 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5038850 M. Kubkowska, A. Czarnecka, T. Fornal, M. Gruca, S. Jabłoński, N. Krawczyk, L. Ryć, R. Burhenn, B. Buttenschön, B. Geiger, O. Grulke, A. Langenberg, O. Marchuk, K. J. McCarthy, U. Neuner, D. Nicolai, N. Pablant, B. Schweer, … Read more

27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2018)

27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2018)

IAEA 22–27 October 2018, Gandhinagar (nearest Airport: Ahmedabad), India The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) fosters the exchange of scientific and technical results in nuclear fusion research and development through its series of Fusion Energy Conferences. The 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2018) aims to provide a forum for the discussion of key physics … Read more

Efficient generation of high-density plasma enabled by high magnetic field

Efficient generation of high-density plasma enabled by high magnetic field

Phys.org September 26, 2018, Osaka University (1) Compressing fusion fuel by nanosecond laser beams; (2) Heating the compressed fuel by a picosecond laser beam to ignite; (3) Ignition and burn Credit: Osaka University An international joint research group led by Osaka University demonstrated that it was possible to efficiently heat plasma by focusing a relativistic … Read more

Pushing the plasma density limit

Pushing the plasma density limit

Lifescience.net Aug 24, 2018 Plasma Science and Fusion Center researchers discover a path to overcoming the plasma density limit in their quest for steady-state fusion. For decades, researchers have been exploring ways to replicate on Earth the physical process of fusion that occurs naturally in the sun and other stars. Confined by its own strong … Read more

Fusion breakthrough: improved control of plasma

Fusion breakthrough: improved control of plasma

Futuretime.net 14th September 2018 Researchers have predicted the entire set of beneficial 3-D distortions for controlling edge localised modes (ELMs) in tokamak plasma. A long-time puzzle in the effort to capture the power of fusion is how to lessen or eliminate a common instability that occurs in the plasma called edge localised modes (ELMs). Just … Read more

Extreme-Scale Code Models Extremely Hot Plasma to Explain Spontaneous Transition

Extreme-Scale Code Models Extremely Hot Plasma to Explain Spontaneous Transition

DOE For the first time, scientists modeled the spontaneous bifurcation of turbulence to high-confinement mode, solving a 35-year-old mystery. Image courtesy of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (Left) A typical plasma-density-fluctuation pattern from edge turbulence in a realistic tokamak geometry. The black line shows the magnetic separatrix surface with the magnetic X-point at the bottom. (Right) … Read more