Advances in plasma and fusion science are described in Quest, PPPL’s research magazine

Advances in plasma and fusion science are described in Quest, PPPL’s research magazine

PPPL July 9, 2018 From analyzing solar flares to pursuing “a star in a jar” to produce virtually limitless electric power, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have developed insights and discoveries over the past year that advance understanding of the universe and the prospect for safe, clean, … Read more

CPMI researchers prepare HIDRA to test liquid lithium fusion reactor experiments

CPMI researchers prepare HIDRA to test liquid lithium fusion reactor experiments

NPRE Illinois Jul 03, 2018 Researchers working with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign HIDRA plasma/fusion facility have had a busy and productive summer as they have prepared the facility to run experiments on techniques designed to advance fusion reactors. Scientists at both Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the Center for Plasma-Material Interactions (CPMI) … Read more

Deep learning software advances the quest for fusion energy feasibility

Deep learning software advances the quest for fusion energy feasibility

Princeton Research Computing Jun 15, 2018 Four members of the PICSciE-affiliated research team that designed the experiments and developed the FRRN code: Chief architect of the FRNN is Julian Kates-Harbeck (inset photo), a graduate student at Harvard University and a DOE Office of Science Computational Science Graduate Fellow; Eliot Feibush (standing, center), a computational scientist … Read more

Physics: Plasma-Jet-Driven Magneto-Inertial Fusion (PJMIF)

Physics: Plasma-Jet-Driven Magneto-Inertial Fusion (PJMIF)

Open Access Government July 9, 2018 Professor Y. C. Francis Thio and Dr. F. Douglas Witherspoon of HyperJet Fusion Corporation, USA share their expert views on physics, with a focus on Plasma-Jet-Driven Magneto-Inertial Fusion (PJMIF) MIF uses a material shell (liner) to compress a magnetised plasma target to create fusion reactions In the previous article … Read more

Atomic Movie of Melting Gold Could Help Design Materials for Future Fusion Reactors

Atomic Movie of Melting Gold Could Help Design Materials for Future Fusion Reactors

RD Mag 06/28/2018 Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have recorded the most detailed atomic movie of gold melting after being blasted by laser light. The insights they gained into how metals liquefy have potential to aid the development of fusion power reactors, steel processing plants, spacecraft and other applications where … Read more

10 Questions for Steven Cowley, New Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

10 Questions for Steven Cowley, New Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

PPPL By Larry Bernard | July 2, 2018 10 Questions for Steven Cowley, New Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Steven Cowley, a theoretical physicist and international authority on fusion energy, became the seventh Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) on July 1 and will be Princeton professor of astrophysical sciences on … Read more

Taming fusion with machine learning

Taming fusion with machine learning

MIT Paul Rivenberg | July 2, 2018 MIT postdoc Cristina Rea records data about disruptions in fusion plasmas from the DIII-D control room. Photo courtesy of General Atomics. Postdoc Cristina Rea’s detour into banking provides a new route back to plasma research. “In some ways you can compare what we are trying to do to … Read more

Has This Startup Cracked the Secret to Fusion Energy?

Has This Startup Cracked the Secret to Fusion Energy?

livescience.com By Yasemin Saplakoglu, Staff Writer | June 25, 2018 The ongoing joke in the world of physics is that commercially viable fusion energy has been just on the horizon — 30 years away at most — for the past eight decades. Now, a new Washington-based startup, Agni Energy Inc., has a plan for a … Read more

Wendelstein 7-X achieves world record for fusion product

Wendelstein 7-X achieves world record for fusion product

Phys.org June 25, 2018 by Isabella Milch, Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik (IPP) View inside the plasma vessel with graphite tile cladding. Credit: IPP, Jan Michael Hosan In the past experimentation round Wendelstein 7-X achieved higher temperatures and densities of the plasma, longer pulses and the stellarator world record for the fusion product. Moreover, first confirmation for … Read more

NIF achieves record double fusion yield

NIF achieves record double fusion yield

LLNL June 13, 2018 This rendering of the inside of NIF’s target chamber shows the target positioner moving into place. Pulses from NIF’s high-powered lasers race through the facility at the speed of light and arrive at the center of the target chamber within a few trillionths of a second of each other, aligned to … Read more