Feature Articles

On 12 February, the CEA’s WEST machine was able to maintain a plasma for more than 22 minutes. In doing so, it smashed the previous record for plasma duration achieved with a tokamak. This leap forward demonstrates how our knowledge of plasmas and technological control of them over longer periods is becoming more mature, and offers hope that fusion plasmas can be stabilised for greater amounts of time in machines such as ITER. 

Seasoned national laboratory scientist and leader Laura Berzak Hopkins joins PPPL as its new associate laboratory director for strategy and partnerships and deputy chief research officer. She previously served as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) associate program director for integrated weapon science, as well as Livermore’s deputy for assessment science to the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Experimental Sciences and Livermore’s funding manager for the weapon survivability program.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory researchers measured a new record for a fusion device internally clad in tungsten. The device sustained a fusion reaction for a record six minutes and four seconds with 1.15 gigajoules of power injected, 15% more energy and twice the density than before. PPPL researchers used their own novel approach to measure several aspects of the reaction using a specially adapted device for detecting X-rays called the multi-energy soft X-ray camera (ME-SXR).

Scientists at PPPL have finished building a new plasma measurement instrument that could aid efforts to boost the heat of fusion reactions in facilities known as tokamaks.

For the first time, scientists have built a fusion experiment using permanent magnets, a technique that could show a simple way to build future devices for less cost and allow researchers to test new concepts for future fusion power plants.

Under the direction of principal engineer Yuhu Zhai, PPPL is building its new High-Field Magnet Test Facility, which will provide powerful magnets for scientific experiments to researchers at both PPPL and Princeton University, as well as private companies along the mid-Atlantic coast.

A close-up look at the PPPL collaboration that helped set the stage for JET's recent record output that advances the development of safe and clean fusion power.

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 two awards will enable physicists to use lasers to reproduce high-energy astrophysical plasmas under extreme conditions to probe processes such as space storms that can disrupt cell phone service.