A tokamak is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field generated by external magnets to confine plasma in the shape of an axially symmetrical torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being developed to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. The tokamak concept is currently one of the leading candidates for a practical fusion reactor.
In plasma physics, plasma stability concerns the stability properties of a plasma in equilibrium and its behavior under small perturbations. The stability of the system determines if the perturbations will grow, oscillate, or be damped out. It is an important consideration in topics such as nuclear fusion and astrophysical plasma.
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.
DIII-D is a tokamak that has been operated since the late 1980s by General Atomics (GA) in San Diego, California, for the United States Department of Energy. The DIII-D National Fusion Facility is part of the ongoing effort to achieve magnetically confined fusion. The mission of the DIII-D Research Program is to establish the scientific basis for the optimization of the tokamak approach to fusion energy production.
A dusty plasma is a plasma containing micrometer (10−6) to nanometer (10−9) sized particles suspended in it. Dust particles are charged and the plasma and particles behave as a plasma. Dust particles may form larger particles resulting in "grain plasmas". Due to the additional complexity of studying plasmas with charged dust particles, dusty plasmas are also known as complex plasmas.
ASDEX Upgrade is a divertor tokamak at the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Garching that went into operation in 1991. At present, it is Germany's second largest fusion experiment after stellarator Wendelstein 7-X.
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.
An edge-localized mode (ELM) is a plasma instability occurring in the edge region of a tokamak plasma due to periodic relaxations of the edge transport barrier in high-confinement mode. Each ELM burst is associated with expulsion of particles and energy from the confined plasma into the scrape-off layer. This phenomenon was first observed in the ASDEX tokamak in 1981. Diamagnetic effects in the model equations expand the size of the parameter space in which solutions of repeated sawteeth can be recovered compared to a resistive MHD model. An ELM can expel up to 20 percent of the reactor's energy.
Plasma–Surface Interaction (PSI) studies study the interaction at the interface between plasma and materials. Focus of the research lies on providing both theoretical and experimental support to the design and validation of plasma facing materials for the fusion experiment ITER and future devices.
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.
The GLAss Spherical Tokamak is a name given to a set of small spherical tokamaks located in Islamabad, Pakistan. They were developed by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as part of the National Tokamak Fusion Program (NTFP) in 2008 and are primarily used for teaching and training purposes.
A ball-pen probe is a modified Langmuir probe used to measure the plasma potential in magnetized plasmas. The ball-pen probe balances the electron and ion saturation currents, so that its floating potential is equal to the plasma potential. Because electrons have a much smaller gyroradius than ions, a moving ceramic shield can be used to screen off an adjustable part of the electron current from the probe collector.
COMPASS, short for Compact Assembly, is a compact tokamak fusion energy device originally completed at the Culham Science Centre in 1989, upgraded in 1992, and operated until 2002. It was designed as a flexible research facility dedicated mostly to plasma physics studies in circular and D-shaped plasmas.
The Hybrid Illinois Device for Research and Applications (HIDRA) is a medium-sized toroidal magnetic fusion device housed in the Nuclear Radiation Laboratory and operated by the Center for Plasma-Material Interactions (CPMI) within the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, United States. HIDRA had its first plasma at the end of April 2016 and started experimental campaigns by December of that year. HIDRA is the former WEGA classical stellarator that was operated at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald Germany from 2001 to 2013.
Jose A. Boedo is a Spanish plasma physicist and a researcher at University of California, San Diego. He was elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2016 for "his ground-breaking contributions to the studies of plasma drifts and intermittent plasma transport in the peripheral region of tokamaks".
Mirnov oscillations are amplitude perturbations of the magnetic field in a plasma. It is named after Sergei V. Mirnov who designed a probe to measure these oscillations in 1965. The probe name is Mirnov coil.
Keith Howard Burrell is an American plasma physicist.
Wendelstein 7-AS was an experimental stellarator which was in operation from 1988 to 2002 by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching. It was the first of a new class of advanced stellarators with modular coils, designed with the goal of developing a nuclear fusion reactor to generate electricity.
HL-2A (Huan-Liuqi-2A) is a medium-sized tokamak for fusion research in Chengdu, China. It was constructed by the China National Nuclear Corporation from early 1999 to 2002, based on the main components of the former German ASDEX device. HL-2A was the first tokamak with a divertor in China. The research goals of HL-2A are the study of fundamental fusion plasma physics to support the international ITER fusion reactor.
The Tokamak Chauffage Alfvén Brésilien (TCABR) is a tokamak situated at the University of São 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.
