Tim Stevenson, an engineer who has been an integral part of major experiments in his 37-year career at PPPL, was named a Distinguished Engineering Fellow for his contributions to two flagship experiments in the drive to bring to Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars.
Researchers believe that fluctuations in the magnetic fields tokamaks use to confine plasma can reduce fusion energy production by causing particle and heat losses from the plasma to the reactor walls. New research has developed a novel light probe that uses polarization to reveal small-scale magnetic turbulence in detail. This will help validate the models used to design reactors and predict their performance.
Profile of path-setting method to simulate the crazy-quilt movement of free electrons during experimental efforts to harness on Earth the fusion power that drives the sun and stars. The method cracks a complex equation that can enable improved control of the random and fast-moving moving electrons in the fuel for fusion energy.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced awards for eight projects with private industry that will allow for collaboration with DOE national laboratories on overcoming challenges in fusion energy development.
A team led by Emily Belli of General Atomics used the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to model plasma turbulence in a nuclear fusion device . The simulations will help inform the design of next-generation tokamaks like ITER with optimum confinement properties.
PPPL researchers have uncovered a process in the swirling masses of plasma surrounding black holes and neutron stars that can cause previously unexplained emissions of light and heat. These findings can increase basic understanding of fundamental astrophysical processes throughout the universe.
Physicists Robert Goldston and Jacob Schwartz present a broad overview of the development of fusion energy on Earth and relate it to the mitigation of climate change.
While trying out a new device that injects powder to clean up the walls of the world’s largest stellarator, scientists were pleased to find that the bits of atoms confined by magnetic fields within the device got temporarily hotter after each injection, leading to better fusion performance.
In an important step toward future fusion reactors, scientists have made novel experimental observations of how silicon carbide’s atomic structure changes as it accumulates radiation damage. This material shows promise for use in fusion reactors and other structures. The experiment used two Department of Energy user facilities to identify new details in this deformation and how it occurs.
Min-Gu Yoo, a postdoctoral physicist in the Theory Department at PPPL, won an Under 40 Young Researcher Award from the Association of Asia-Pacific Physical Societies-Division of Plasma Physics for his research on ohmic breakdown in tokamaks.
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently paid a visit to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory where she met with staff, took a virtual tour of the Laboratory, and learned more about PPPL's primary mission of developing fusion energy as clean and abundant source of electricity as well as expanded research directions exploring plasma applications in microelectronics and sustainability and advanced computing.
Article describes presentation to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology the report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that calls for rapidly assembling public, private and university partnerships to carry out plans for an electricity-generating pilot plant.
Anne White at MIT had a vision for an innovative approach to experiments to aid in the study and understanding of tokamak turbulence. Her work has developed rigorous validation of the models used to detail measurements of the turbulence, towards fusion’s promise of clean and nearly unlimited energy.
Researchers at PPPL have made simple changes to equations that model the movement of heat in plasma. The changes improve insights that could help engineers avoid the conditions that could lead to heat loss in future fusion facilities.
A team of fusion researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used datasets from measurements on the Joint European Torus, or JET, tokamak to model an improved method for quantifying the amount of plasma-radiated power during a disruption of normal operations.
Impurities in the plasmas in tokamaks can reduce performance. These impurities are from interactions between the hot plasma and tungsten tokamak walls. This experiment found that tokamak magnetic fields that rotate clockwise direction can remove these impurities. This is the opposite direction from normal and the same direction the plasma current moves.
RUDN University physicists have described the conditions for the most efficient operation of long mirror-based variant of cyclotron in the autoresonance mode. These data will bring better understanding of plasma processes in magnetic traps.
It has long been theorized that hydrogen, helium, and lithium were the only chemical elements in existence during the Big Bang, and that supernova explosions are responsible for transmuting these elements into heavier ones. Researchers are now challenging this and in AIP Advances propose an alternative model for the formation of nitrogen, oxygen, and water based on the history of Earth's atmosphere. They postulate that the 25 elements with atomic numbers smaller than iron were created via an endothermic nuclear transmutation of two nuclei, carbon and oxygen.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $400 million in funding for a range of research opportunities to support DOE’s clean energy, economic, and national security goals.
Emily A. Carter, former dean of the Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science, and most recently executive vice chancellor and provost at UCLA, has been named Senior Strategic Advisor for Sustainability Science at PPPL.
Theoretical and computational physicist Greg Hammett, a leader in advancing understanding of the complex turbulence that controls the performance of fusion plasmas and a dedicated educator, has been named a 2021 Distinguished Scientist Fellow by the DOE’s Office of Science.
The Department of Energy (DOE) announced three DOE National Laboratory scientists as DOE Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellows. This honor, authorized by the America COMPETES Act, is bestowed on National Laboratory scientists with outstanding records of achievement and provides each Fellow with $1 million over three years to support activities that develop, sustain, and promote scientific and academic excellence in DOE Office of Science research.
The Compact Advanced Tokamak (CAT) concept uses physics models to show that by carefully shaping the plasma and the distribution of current in the plasma, fusion plant operators can suppress turbulent eddies in the plasma. This would reduce heat loss and allow more efficient reactor operation. This advance could help achieve self-sustaining plasma and smaller, less expensive power plants.
Summer interns working for PPPL did hands-on research from their computers in their bedrooms or on their dining room tables all over the U.S. They worked closely with PPPL physicists and engineers on research aimed at understanding ionized gases called plasmas.
Researchers are using smaller tokamaks and computer models to test approaches for suppressing runaway electrons in plasmas. This research used measurements and modeling to demonstrate that perturbations to the magnetic field in a tokamak fusion plasma can suppress high-energy runaway electrons. The results could help improve the operation of ITER and other future fusion devices.
In a conventional tokamak, the cross-section of the plasma is shaped like the letter D. Facing the straight part of the D on the inside side of the donut-shaped tokamak is called positive triangularity. New research suggests that reversing the plasma—negative triangularity--reduces how much the plasma interacts with the surfaces of the tokamak for reduced wear.
Results of a heat-confinement experiment on the twisty magnetic Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Germany could enable devices based on the W7-X design to lead to a practical fusion reactor.
Researchers at PPPL have used supercomputers and a state-of-the-art computer code to simulate plasma in fusion devices under a wider range of conditions than ever before.
Scientists at PPPL have transferred a technique from one realm of plasma physics to another to enable the more efficient design of powerful magnets for doughnut-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks.
Expert Q&A: Do breakthrough cases mean we will soon need COVID boosters? The extremely contagious Delta variant continues to spread, prompting mask mandates, proof of vaccination, and other measures. Media invited to ask the experts about these and related topics.
The virtual ninth annual global gathering presented leading experimental and theoretical methods for avoiding or mitigating the greatest challenge to doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion devices.
Achieving fusion ignition – the process that powers the sun, stars and thermonuclear weapons – has been a decades-long goal for inertial confinement fusion research.
On Aug. 8, 2021, an experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) made a significant step toward ignition, achieving a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ). This is enabled by focusing laser light from NIF - the size of three football fields - onto a target the size of a BB that produces a hot-spot the diameter of a human hair, generating more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power for 100 trillionths of a second.
This advance puts researchers at the threshold of fusion ignition, an important goal of the NIF, and opens access to a new experimental regime.
The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory announced that accomplished engineer Ruben Fair, has been named head of the ITER Department, heading PPPL's ITER Team, which is focused on the design and fabrication of six diagnostics for the international fusion experiment.
Novel camera detects the birth of high-energy runaway electrons, which may lead to determining how to prevent damage caused by the highly energetic particles.
News release profiles award-winning physicist Elizabeth Paul, whose work advances the development of fusion devices called stellarators that aim to harvest on Earth fusion energy.
Today, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (SC) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced $9.35 million for 21 research projects in High-Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas (HEDLP).
University of Washington researchers have developed a method that uses a gaming graphics card to control plasma formation in their prototype fusion reactor.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced awards totaling $127 million to a diverse set of small businesses working on advanced scientific tools and clean, secure energy for the American people.
This new program will allow undergraduates to conduct research in a wide range of plasma physics topics, including fusion energy, general plasma science, astrophysical plasmas, and accelerator physics.
Zeke Unterberg is a senior research scientist at Oak Ridge National Lab, studying ways to optimize the operations and materials for future nuclear fusion reactors.
PPPL scientists have developed a path-setting way to measure RF waves that could lead to enhanced future experiments aimed at bringing fusion energy to Earth.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science today announced that 22 million node-hours for 41 scientific projects under the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC) program.
The Department of Energy (DOE) today awarded $2.1 million across 9 collaborative projects between DOE national laboratories and private industry aimed at overcoming challenges in fusion energy development.