A nuclear fusion reactor in which a magnetic field keeps charged, hot plasma moving in a doughnut-shaped vacuum container.
A model once thought to be nearly impossible for quickly and accurately designing radio frequency (RF) waves needed to fire up doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion facilities has been developed by a graduate student at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).
A model once thought to be nearly impossible for quickly and accurately designing radio frequency (RF) waves needed to fire up doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion facilities has been developed by a graduate student at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The student, Nick Lopez, has innovated a fast and accurate way to calculate the energy and path of RF waves that are distorted by roadblocks called “caustics” that make the behavior of the waves highly complex.
Want to improve your chances of making electricity from fusion? Look no further than the cleaners under your kitchen sink.
Research led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) provides new evidence that particles of boron, the main ingredient of Borax household cleaner, can coat internal components of doughnut-shaped plasma devices known as tokamaks and improve the efficiency of the fusion reactions.
Wolfgang Stodiek, a pioneer in plasma physics and a researcher who helped lead the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory’s early research on experimental devices called tokamaks, passed away at his family home in Bielefeld, Germany, on March 7. He was 95.
New research reveals a surprising insight into the physics behind magnetic reconnection, a process occurring through the universe that converts magnetic to kinetic energy. The findings, by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) together with other physicists, could lead to a greater ability to predict space weather — fast particles from the sun that can disrupt communications satellites and electrical networks.
As the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory celebrates International Women’s Day March 8 and Women’s History Month throughout March, we asked some of our staff members to tell us what Women’s History Month means to them. This is the first of a weekly series throughout March.
Name: Anna Teplukhina
Position: Postdoctoral researcher, ITER and Tokamaks
How long at PPPL: Two years
Describe your job:
Stellar, a computing cluster that Princeton University is installing in its High-Performance Computing Research Center, will sharply advance research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) to bring to Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. The computer, which the Laboratory will share with a broad range of University departments, will be available to the entire PPPL scientific community including engineers.
The U.S. should immediately invest in resolving the scientific and technical issues in designing and building a fusion-powered pilot plant to operate in the 2035-2040 time range as a stepping stone to a commercial fusion plant that would fire up by 2050. Calling for the acceleration was a 93-page report put together by a panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) chaired by Richard J. Hawryluk, associate director for fusion at the U.S.
Efforts to duplicate on Earth the fusion reactions that power the sun and stars for unlimited energy must contend with extreme heat-load density that can damage the doughnut-shaped fusion facilities called tokamaks, the most widely used laboratory facilities that house fusion reactions, and shut them down.
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory managed by Princeton University.
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