Plasma fusion as a research area investigates the conditions and processes required to achieve controlled thermonuclear fusion in ionized gases, focusing on confinement, stability, heating, and transport phenomena in high-temperature plasmas. It encompasses magnetic confinement (e.g., tokamaks, stellarators), inertial confinement (laser- or particle-beam driven), and alternative concepts, integrating plasma physics, nuclear physics, materials science, and advanced diagnostics. Key objectives include understanding turbulence, instabilities, and non-linear interactions that govern energy and particle confinement, optimizing reactor-relevant regimes such as H-mode, and developing predictive models to guide the design of fusion devices aimed at net energy gain and ultimately practical fusion power production.
In a scientific first, South Korean scientists have provided experimental proof of "multi-scale coupling" in plasma, where interactions between phenomena at the microscopic level and macroscopic level influence each other. ...
A new class of advanced steels needs more fine-tuning before use in system components for fusion energy—a more sustainable alternative to fission that combines two light atoms rather than splitting one heavy atom. The alloy, ...
Plasma Physics
Aug 6, 2025
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Lithium is considered a key ingredient in the future commercial fusion power plants known as tokamaks, and there are several ways to use this metal to enhance the process. But a key question remained: How much does it impact ...
Plasma Physics
Jul 29, 2025
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The alchemist's dream is to make gold from common metals, but can this be done? The physics needed to explain how to change one element into another is well understood and has been used for decades in accelerators and colliders, ...
Plasma Physics
Jul 28, 2025
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A startup energy company, called Marathon Fusion, may soon be living out the dream of alchemists from the Middle Ages. In a recently released paper posted to the arXiv preprint server, the company outlines a method to turn ...
A research team led by Prof. Sun Youwen from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed two innovative artificial intelligence (AI) systems to enhance the safety and efficiency ...
Plasma Physics
Jul 21, 2025
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A Los Alamos collaboration has replicated an important but largely forgotten physics experiment: the first deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion observation. As described in the article published in Physical Review C, the reworking ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 25, 2025
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On May 22, the latest experimental campaign concluded at the world's most powerful nuclear fusion device of the stellarator type. Through collaboration between researchers from Europe and the U.S., Wendelstein 7-X achieved, ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 3, 2025
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Nuclear fusion reactors are highly powerful technologies that can generate energy by fusing (i.e., joining) two light atomic nuclei to form a heavier nucleus. These fusion reactions release large amounts of energy, which ...
The bundle of magnets at the heart of the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory's (PPPL) National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U) is the star of the show.
General Physics
May 31, 2025
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