Dramatic advances in laser technologies are enabling novel studies to explore laser-matter interactions at ultrahigh intensity. By focusing high-power laser pulses, electric fields (of orders of magnitude greater than found ...
Plasma Physics
Sep 27, 2016
2
1305
Since their development in the 1940s, transistors have been at the heart of computers and other modern electronic devices. Transistors - whose job is to start, stop, or amplify electric current - come in all shapes, sizes ...
A challenge to creating fusion energy on Earth is trapping the charged gas known as plasma that fuels fusion reactions within a strong magnetic field and keeping the plasma as hot and dense as possible for as long as possible. ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 30, 2020
2
1462
After the quark-gluon plasma filled the universe for a few millionths of a second after the big bang, it was over 13 billion years until experimenters managed to recreate the extraordinarily hot, dense medium on Earth. The ...
Plasma Physics
Jan 15, 2010
9
0
A major issue with operating ring-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks is keeping the plasma that fuels fusion reactions free of impurities that could reduce the efficiency of the reactions. Now, scientists at the U.S. ...
Plasma Physics
Dec 23, 2019
33
957
In the quest to produce nuclear fusion energy, researchers from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility have recently confirmed long-standing theoretical predictions that performance, efficiency and reliability are simultaneously ...
Plasma Physics
Nov 2, 2009
46
0
A study led by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of California, Los Angeles has demonstrated a new, efficient way to accelerate positrons, the antimatter ...
Plasma Physics
Aug 26, 2015
3
4267
Scientists have found a mathematical shortcut that could help harness fusion energy, a potential source of clean electricity that could mitigate floods, heat waves, and other rising effects of climate change. The method allows ...
Plasma Physics
Aug 17, 2023
18
827
On Friday, Sept. 30, at 9:25 p.m. EDT, scientists and engineers at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center made a leap forward in the pursuit of clean energy. The team set a new world record for plasma pressure in the Institute's ...
Plasma Physics
Oct 14, 2016
89
284
Research in fundamental science has revealed the existence of quark-gluon plasma (QGP)—a newly identified state of matter—as the constituent of the early universe. Known to have existed a microsecond after the Big Bang, ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 13, 2023
0
776
