Inverting Fusion Plasmas Improves Performance
Department of Energy, Office of ScienceAt high temperatures and densities, plasmas in fusion devices can develop gradients that can grow into instabilities, including edge localized modes (ELMs) that can damage reactor walls. In this research, scientists studied negative triangularity, a way the plasma shape can deviate from an oval. The research found this shaping was inherently free of instabilities across various plasma conditions, including operating reactor conditions.