Divertor and Injection Tokamak Experiment

DITE
Divertor and Injection Tokamak Experiment
Device type	Tokamak
Location	Culham, Oxfordshire, UK
Affiliation	Culham Centre for Fusion Energy
Technical specifications
Major radius	1.17 m (3 ft 10 in)
Minor radius	0.26 m (10 in)
Magnetic field	2.7 T (27,000 G)
Heating power	>2 MW NBI
Plasma current	350 kA
Plasma temperature	1 keV (ions); 1.8 keV (electrons)
Plasma density	1×1020 m−3
History
Year(s) of operation	1975–1989
Preceded by	Tosca
Succeeded by	JET

Last updated October 16, 2026

The Divertor and Injection Tokamak Experiment, abbreviated DITE, was an early tokamak magnetic confinement fusion experiment built and operated at UKAEA Culham in the UK from 1975. Its main features were a 'bundle' divertor, and heating by tangential neutral beams which could drive additional plasma current.^[1]

DITE followed the CLEO stellarator, which had been operated as a tokamak without its helical windings. This signalled the start of the shift of the UK's fusion programme from the stellarator to the tokamak, especially as the UKAEA lab was chosen in 1977 to host the Euratom JET, a large tokamak funded by numerous West European countries including West Germany, France, and Italy.^[3]

DITE was operated in steady state mode with the plasma current driven entirely by neutral beam injection rather than inductive Ohmic heating. Although the beam-injected current was relatively low even by contemporary standards, this steady state operation of a tokamak was a leading capability at the time.^[2]

Related experiments

Princeton Large Torus, USA
T-10 tokamak, USSR

References

1 2 3 4 5 Wesson, J. (1987). Tokamaks. Clarendon Press. p. 273, 284. ISBN 9780198562931.
1 2 3 4 5 Paul, J.W.M. (1985). "The DITE Experiment". Nuclear Fusion . 25 (1097). doi:10.1088/0029-5515/25/9/019.
1 2 Reinders, L.J. (2021). The Fairy Tale of Nuclear Fusion. Cham: Springer Nature. p. 126, 129, 153. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-64344-7. ISBN 9783030643430.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[tok-wes-1] 1 2 3 4 5 Wesson, J. (1987). Tokamaks. Clarendon Press. p. 273, 284. ISBN 9780198562931.

[paul85-2] 1 2 3 4 5 Paul, J.W.M. (1985). "The DITE Experiment". Nuclear Fusion . 25 (1097). doi:10.1088/0029-5515/25/9/019.

[reinders-3] 1 2 Reinders, L.J. (2021). The Fairy Tale of Nuclear Fusion. Cham: Springer Nature. p. 126, 129, 153. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-64344-7. ISBN 9783030643430.

[1]

[2]

[3]