Ambrogio Fasoli | |
---|---|
Born | 10 November 1964 |
Known for | Director of the Swiss Plasma Center |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Plasma physics Nuclear fusion |
Institutions | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) |
Website | https://www.epfl.ch/research/domains/swiss-plasma-center/ |
Ambrogio Fasoli (born 10 November 1964 in Milan) is a researcher and professor working in the field of fusion and plasma physics. A Fellow of the American Physical Society, he is Director of the Swiss Plasma Center, located at EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. Since 1 January 2019, he chairs the European consortium EUROfusion, the umbrella organisation for the development of nuclear fusion power in Europe. [1]
From 2014 through 2020, he was also Editor-in-Chief of Nuclear Fusion, [2] the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Fasoli represents Switzerland on the Governing Board of Fusion For Energy, the agency that manages Europe's contributions to the international fusion reactor project ITER.
Since January 2021, he is Associate Vice President for Research of EPFL, [3] the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
Fasoli graduated from the University of Milan, (in physics, 1988) and from EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (PhD in Science, 1993, EPFL best thesis award). He went on to do his post-doctoral research on JET, the world's largest fusion reactor, participating in 1997 in the experiments that still hold the record for fusion power generated for peaceful purposes by a plasma on earth.
He joined the Physics Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as tenure track assistant professor in 1997. At MIT, he led the plasma physics research group and coordinated the international scientific collaboration between MIT and JET.
In 2001, he joined the EPFL Faculty of Basic Sciences, then became associate professor, before being appointed full professor in physics in 2008. In 2007, he was appointed executive director of the Centre de Recherches en Physique des Plasmas (CRPP), of which he became director in 2013, and which became the Swiss Plasma Center in 2015 [4] Fasoli was responsible for several years for EPFL's TCV Tokamak, one of the national facilities in Europe participating in the research for the international reactor ITER [5]
In 2008, Fasoli was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society,. [6] Since 2001, he has been a visiting professor in the Department of Physics at MIT [7]
From 2010 through 2014, he was the Head of Physics Strategic Committee, and a member of the Directorate of the EPFL Basic Science Faculty. Since 1 January 2019, he is the chair of the European consortium EUROfusion, the umbrella organization of Europe's fusion laboratories.
He has developed a Massive open online course (MOOC) dedicated to fusion and plasma physics, with several thousand registrations each year. [8]
Fasoli works in the areas of basic plasma physics, burning plasma physics, and tokamak physics. At the Swiss Plasma Center, located at EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), he has founded and led the basic plasmas research group, and built the TORPEX facility. [9] He was responsible for the TCV tokamak, the experimental fusion reactor, for several years. [10] plasma physics and nuclear fusion.
At MIT, (1997-2001), he founded and led the plasma physics research group, constructing the Versatile Toroidal Facility (VTF) experiment to study the physics of magnetic reconnection, and coordinated the international scientific collaboration between MIT and JET. [11]
As a researcher at JET, he initiated a series of experiments on the interaction between plasma particles and Alfvén waves, of interest to fusion reactor plasmas. He participated in 1997 in the experiments that still hold the record for fusion power generated for peaceful purposes by a plasma on earth [12]
A tokamak is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being developed to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. As of 2016, it was the leading candidate for a practical fusion reactor. The word "tokamak" is derived from a Russian acronym meaning "toroidal chamber with magnetic coils".
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory for plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. Its primary mission is research into and development of fusion as an energy source. It is known for the development of the stellarator and tokamak designs, along with numerous fundamental advances in plasma physics and the exploration of many other plasma confinement concepts.
Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2024, no device has reached net power, although net positive reactions have been achieved.
This timeline of nuclear fusion is an incomplete chronological summary of significant events in the study and use of nuclear fusion.
The Joint European Torus (JET) was a magnetically confined plasma physics experiment, located at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, UK. Based on a tokamak design, the fusion research facility was a joint European project with the main purpose of opening the way to future nuclear fusion grid energy. At the time of its design JET was larger than any comparable machine.
ITER is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy through a fusion process similar to that of the Sun. Upon completion of construction of the main reactor and first plasma, planned for late 2025, it will be the world's largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment and the largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. It is being built next to the Cadarache facility in southern France. ITER will be the largest of more than 100 fusion reactors built since the 1950s, with ten times the plasma volume of any other tokamak operating today.
Magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) is an approach to generate thermonuclear fusion power that uses magnetic fields to confine fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of controlled fusion research, along with inertial confinement fusion.
A spheromak is an arrangement of plasma formed into a toroidal shape similar to a smoke ring. The spheromak contains large internal electric currents and their associated magnetic fields arranged so the magnetohydrodynamic forces within the spheromak are nearly balanced, resulting in long-lived (microsecond) confinement times without external fields. Spheromaks belong to a type of plasma configuration referred to as the compact toroids. A spheromak can be made and sustained using magnetic flux injection, leading to a dynomak.
DEMO, or a demonstration power plant, refers to a proposed class of nuclear fusion experimental reactors that are intended to demonstrate the net production of electric power from nuclear fusion. Most of the ITER partners have plans for their own DEMO-class reactors. With the possible exception of the EU and Japan, there are no plans for international collaboration as there was with ITER.
Minh-Quảng Trần is a professor at the EPFL.
The tokamak à configuration variable is an experimental tokamak located at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) in Lausanne, Switzerland. As the largest experimental facility of the Swiss Plasma Center, the TCV tokamak explores the physics of magnetic confinement fusion. It distinguishes itself from other tokamaks with its specialized plasma shaping capability, which can produce diverse plasma shapes without requiring hardware modifications.
Ignitor is the Italian name for a planned tokamak device, developed by ENEA. As of 2022, the device has not been constructed.
The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is the UK's national laboratory for fusion research. It is located at the Culham Science Centre, near Culham, Oxfordshire, and is the site of the Joint European Torus (JET), Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST) and the now closed Small Tight Aspect Ratio Tokamak (START).
In nuclear fusion power research, the plasma-facing material (PFM) is any material used to construct the plasma-facing components (PFC), those components exposed to the plasma within which nuclear fusion occurs, and particularly the material used for the lining the first wall or divertor region of the reactor vessel.
In magnetic confinement fusion, a divertor or diverted configuration is a magnetic field configuration of a tokamak or a stellarator which separates the confined plasma from the material surface of the device. The plasma particles which diffuse across the boundary of the confined region are diverted by the open, wall-intersecting magnetic field lines to wall structures which are called the divertor targets, usually remote from the confined plasma. The magnetic divertor extracts heat and ash produced by the fusion reaction, minimizes plasma contamination, and protects the surrounding walls from thermal and neutronic loads.
Hartmut Zohm is a German plasma physicist who is known for his work on the ASDEX Upgrade machine. He received the 2014 John Dawson Award and the 2016 Hannes Alfvén Prize for successfully demonstrating that neoclassical tearing modes in tokamaks can be stabilized by electron cyclotron resonance heating, which is an important design consideration for pushing the performance limit of the ITER.
Donato Palumbo was an Italian physicist best known as the leader of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) fusion research program from its formation in 1958 to his retirement in 1986. He was a key force in the development of the tokamak during the 1970s and 80s, contributing several papers on plasma confinement in these devices and leading the JET fusion reactor program, which as of 2021, retains the record for the closest approach to breakeven, the ratio between the produced fusion power and the power used to heat it. He is referred to as the founding father of the European fusion program.
The history of nuclear fusion began early in the 20th century as an inquiry into how stars powered themselves and expanded to incorporate a broad inquiry into the nature of matter and energy, as potential applications expanded to include warfare, energy production and rocket propulsion.
The Tokamak Chauffage Alfvén Brésilien (TCABR) is a tokamak situated at the University of Sao Paulo (USP), Brazil. TCABR is the largest tokamak in the southern hemisphere and one of the magnetic-confinement devices committed to advancing scientific knowledge in fusion power.
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