https://phys.org/physics-news/plasma en-us Phys.org provides the latest news on physics of plasma Electric current is everywhere, from powering homes to controlling the plasma that fuels fusion reactions to possibly giving rise to vast cosmic magnetic fields. Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found that electrical currents can form in ways not known before. The novel findings could give researchers greater ability to bring the fusion energy that drives the sun and stars to Earth. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-unexpected-electrical-current-stabilize-fusion.html Plasma Physics Fri, 04 Sep 2020 12:43:48 EDT news518442223 Low-temperature plasmas offer promise for applications in medicine, water purification, agriculture, pollutant removal, nanomaterial synthesis and more. Yet making these plasmas by conventional methods takes several thousand volts of electricity, says David Go, an aerospace and mechanical engineer at the University of Notre Dame. That limits their use outside high-voltage power settings. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-low-temperature-plasma-device-efficient.html Plasma Physics Fri, 04 Sep 2020 09:20:01 EDT news518429481 The inside of future nuclear fusion energy reactors will be among the harshest environments ever produced on Earth. What's strong enough to protect the inside of a fusion reactor from plasma-produced heat fluxes akin to space shuttles reentering Earth's atmosphere? https://phys.org/news/2020-08-tungsten-isotope-armor-future-fusion.html General Physics Plasma Physics Fri, 28 Aug 2020 14:37:26 EDT news517844241 An international team of researchers led by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has upgraded a key computer code for calculating forces acting on magnetically confined plasma in fusion energy experiments. The upgrade will be part of a suite of computational tools that will allow scientists to further improve the design of breakfast-cruller-shaped facilities known as stellarators. Together, the three codes in the suite could help scientists bring efficient fusion reactors closer to reality. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-code-efficiency-fusion.html Plasma Physics Wed, 26 Aug 2020 03:39:22 EDT news517631959 A team of researchers at DESY has reached an important milestone on the road to the particle accelerator of the future. For the first time, a so-called laser plasma accelerator has run for more than a day while continuously producing electron beams. The LUX beamline, jointly developed and operated by DESY and the University of Hamburg, achieved a run time of 30 hours. "This brings us a big step closer to the steady operation of this innovative particle accelerator technology," says DESY's Andreas R. Maier, the leader of the group. The scientists are reporting on their record in the journal Physical Review X. "The time is ripe to move laser plasma acceleration from the laboratory to practical applications," adds the director of DESY's Accelerator Division, Wim Leemans. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-world-plasma-clock.html Plasma Physics Wed, 19 Aug 2020 11:03:23 EDT news517053800 Picture strong wind blowing against a tree until it's knocked down. Such action would mimic the process that causes damaging heat bursts called edge localized modes (ELMs) to flare up in fusion facilities called tokamaks, which scientists use to develop on Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. Such heat bursts normally occur when the pressure at the edge of the hot plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions reaches a peak, causing heat to erupt against the walls of the tokamak, much like a tree finally toppling in a growing wind. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-scientists-fusion-reactors.html Plasma Physics Tue, 18 Aug 2020 01:30:20 EDT news516933006 Picture an airplane that can only climb to one or two altitudes after taking off. That limitation would be similar to the plight facing scientists who seek to avoid instabilities that restrict the path to clean, safe and abundant fusion energy in doughnut-shaped tokamak facilities. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and General Atomics (GA) have now published a breakthrough explanation of this tokamak restriction and how it may be overcome. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-scientists-method-fusion-device.html Plasma Physics Wed, 12 Aug 2020 10:21:57 EDT news516446512 Scientists have found a novel way to prevent pesky magnetic bubbles in plasma from interfering with fusion reactions—delivering a potential way to improve the performance of fusion energy devices. And it comes from managing radio frequency (RF) waves to stabilize the magnetic bubbles, which can expand and create disruptions that can limit the performance of ITER, the international facility under construction in France to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-scientists-method-fusion-reactions.html Plasma Physics Tue, 04 Aug 2020 16:25:01 EDT news515777098 The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) team has proposed a new integrated control solution to tackle key problems in divertor power exhaust for the steady state operation of tokamak fusion reactor. https://phys.org/news/2020-07-team-power-exhaust-solution-fusion-reactor.html General Physics Plasma Physics Thu, 30 Jul 2020 08:27:07 EDT news515316423 Lithium, the silvery metal that powers smart phones and helps treat bipolar disorders, could also play a significant role in the worldwide effort to harvest on Earth the safe, clean and virtually limitless fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. First results of the extensively upgraded Lithium Tokamak Experiment-Beta (LTX-β) at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), demonstrate that the major enhancements operate as designed and improve the performance of the hot, charged plasma that will fuel future fusion reactors. https://phys.org/news/2020-07-results-device-highlight-lithium-fusion.html Plasma Physics Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:02:44 EDT news515257353 A hugely ambitious project to replicate the energy of the sun is entering a critical phase, as scientists and technicians in southern France begin assembling giant parts of a nuclear fusion device, an international experiment aimed to develop the ultimate clean energy source. https://phys.org/news/2020-07-france-recreate-powers-sun.html Plasma Physics Tue, 28 Jul 2020 17:30:01 EDT news515159139 Fourteen years after receiving the official go-ahead, scientists on Tuesday began assembling a giant machine in southern France designed to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the process which powers the sun, can be a safe and viable energy source on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2020-07-quest-advances-recreate-sun-energy.html General Physics Plasma Physics Tue, 28 Jul 2020 13:15:29 EDT news515160923 Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have furthered understanding of a barrier that can prevent doughnut-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks from operating at high efficiency by causing vital heat to be lost from them. https://phys.org/news/2020-07-birds-chirp-plasma-shouldnt-insight.html Plasma Physics Wed, 22 Jul 2020 03:35:17 EDT news514607702 A new spin on the magnetic compression of plasmas could improve materials science, nuclear fusion research, X-ray generation and laboratory astrophysics, research led by the University of Michigan suggests. https://phys.org/news/2020-07-magnetic-fields-extreme-plasma-compression.html Plasma Physics Wed, 15 Jul 2020 11:14:16 EDT news514030451 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. Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have gained new insight into a common type of hiccup known as the sawtooth instability that cools the hot plasma in the center and interferes with the fusion reactions. These findings could help bring fusion energy closer to reality. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-mathematical-noodling-insights-fusion-problem.html Plasma Physics Tue, 30 Jun 2020 17:00:14 EDT news512755209 One way that scientists seek to bring to Earth the fusion process that powers the sun and stars is trapping hot, charged plasma gas within a twisting magnetic coil device shaped like a breakfast cruller. But the device, called a stellarator, must be precisely engineered to prevent heat from escaping the plasma core where it stokes the fusion reactions. Now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have demonstrated that an advanced computer code could help design stellarators that confine the essential heat more effectively. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-scientists-tool-fusion-devices.html Plasma Physics Thu, 25 Jun 2020 03:38:44 EDT news512275119 The magnetic structures resulting from a plasma instability predicted by the physicist Erich Weibel about 50 years ago have been evidenced at surprisingly large scales in a laser-driven plasma in the prestigious journal Nature Physics. This instability is also expected to operate in astrophysical settings where it is held responsible for the acceleration of cosmic rays and the emission of gamma photons in the famous "gamma-ray bursts." https://phys.org/news/2020-06-imaging-magnetic-instabilities-laser-protons.html Plasma Physics Wed, 24 Jun 2020 11:58:50 EDT news512218727 Plasmas are strongly associated with thermonuclear reactions inside stars such as the sun, but in modern society, plasmas have found application in lithographic processes and decontamination techniques. High-temperature plasmas, like those in the sun, can be quite energy-inefficient for chemical applications and degrade materials in processes. One way to address such issues is to manipulate plasmas in a low-temperature environment. Ph.D. candidate Bart Platier has developed a new plasma-based production technique using low-temperature and atmospheric pressure plasmas for illumination diffusers, which are used in lighting technologies to improve the distribution of light. Platier defends his Ph.D. thesis on June 26th. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-behavior-electrons-plasmas.html Plasma Physics Wed, 24 Jun 2020 09:29:20 EDT news512209756 A team of scientists led by University of Nevada, Reno's Hiroshi Sawada, an associate professor of the Physics Department, demonstrated that numerical modeling accurately reproduces X-ray images using laser-produced X-rays. The images were obtained using the University's chirped pulse amplification-based 50-Terawatt Leopard laser at their Zebra Pulsed Power Lab. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-scientists-numerical-capability-laser-driven-x-ray.html Plasma Physics Tue, 23 Jun 2020 08:23:49 EDT news512119425 All efforts to replicate in tokamak fusion facilities the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars must cope with a constant problem—transient heat bursts that can halt fusion reactions and damage the doughnut-shaped tokamaks. These bursts, called edge localized modes (ELMs), occur at the edge of hot, charged plasma gas when it kicks into high gear to fuel fusion reactions. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-proven-method-stabilizing-efforts-fusion.html Plasma Physics Wed, 17 Jun 2020 16:50:44 EDT news511631439 In a paper recently published by Physical Review Letters, a team of researchers including scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) detail the first quantitative measurements of the magnetic field structure of plasma filamentation driven by the Weibel instability, using a novel optical Thompson scattering technique. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-expose-powerful-magnetic-fields-aftermath.html General Physics Plasma Physics Wed, 17 Jun 2020 08:22:36 EDT news511600954 As the Earth orbits the sun, it plows through a stream of fast-moving particles that can interfere with satellites and global positioning systems. Now, a team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University has reproduced a process that occurs in space to deepen understanding of what happens when the Earth encounters this solar wind. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-deepens-earth-interaction-solar.html Plasma Physics Wed, 03 Jun 2020 03:27:51 EDT news510373668 Blobs can wreak havoc in plasma required for fusion reactions. This bubble-like turbulence swells up at the edge of fusion plasmas and drains heat from the edge, limiting the efficiency of fusion reactions in doughnut-shaped fusion facilities called "tokamaks." Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have now discovered a surprising correlation of the blobs with fluctuations of the magnetic field that confines the plasma fueling fusion reactions in the device core. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-blob-link-edge-turbulence-fusion.html Plasma Physics Wed, 27 May 2020 03:17:09 EDT news509768196 The subject of the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics, chirped pulse amplification is a technique that increases the strength of laser pulses in many of today's highest-powered research lasers. As next-generation laser facilities look to push beam power up to 10 petawatts, physicists expect a new era for studying plasmas, whose behavior is affected by features typically seen in black holes and the winds from pulsars. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-next-gen-laser-facilities-usher-era.html Plasma Physics Tue, 26 May 2020 11:00:05 EDT news509692176 A major roadblock to producing safe, clean and abundant fusion energy on Earth is the lack of detailed understanding of how the hot, charged plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions behaves at the edge of fusion facilities called "tokamaks." Recent breakthroughs by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have advanced understanding of the behavior of the highly complex plasma edge in doughnut-shaped tokamaks on the road to capturing the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. Understanding this edge region will be particularly important for operating ITER, the international fusion experiment under construction in France to demonstrate the practicality of fusion energy. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-discovery-edge-fusion-plasma-power.html Plasma Physics Fri, 22 May 2020 10:25:39 EDT news509361936 A team at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility led by a William & Mary physicist has made a significant advancement in physics understanding that represents a key step toward practical fusion energy. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-scientists-unravel-fusion.html Plasma Physics Thu, 21 May 2020 09:51:34 EDT news509273491 Plasmon-enhanced molecular spectroscopies have attracted tremendous attention as powerful detection tools with ultrahigh sensitivity down to the single-molecule level. The optical response of molecules in the vicinity of nanostructures with plasmon resonance would be dramatically enhanced through interactions with plasmons. However, beyond the signal amplification, the molecule-plasmon interaction also inevitably induce strong modifications in the spectral lineshapes and distort the implied chemical information of molecules. A typical example is surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) spectra. Due to the dominated molecule-plasmon coupling, the lineshapes of molecular absorption spectra exhibit complicated asymmetric Fano lineshapes, instead of the symmetric Lorentzian lineshapes of probe molecules in the gas phase or in solution phase. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-molecule-plasmon-coupling-strength-tunes-surface-enhanced.html Optics & Photonics Plasma Physics Wed, 20 May 2020 12:30:42 EDT news509196639 Researchers at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have patented a new spatial plasma-fueled engine capable of satellite and spacecraft propulsion, with magnetic field geometry and configuration that would minimize losses on walls and their erosion, thereby resolving issues of efficiency, durability, and operating restrictions of engines that are currently in orbit. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-plasma-expensive-efficient-longer-space.html Plasma Physics Wed, 20 May 2020 11:16:01 EDT news509192159 Nearly 50 years ago, Brown University physicist Michael Kosterlitz and his colleagues used the mathematics of topology—the study of how objects can be deformed by stretching or twisting but not tearing or breaking—to explain puzzling phase changes in certain types of matter. The work won Kosterlitz a share of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics and has led to the discovery of topological phenomena in all kinds of systems, from thin films that conduct electricity only around their edges, to strange waves that propagate in the oceans and atmosphere at the Earth's equator. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-topological-plasma.html Plasma Physics Thu, 14 May 2020 14:43:32 EDT news508686203 Extreme ultraviolet light (EUV light) does not naturally occur on Earth, but it can be produced. In nanolithography machines, EUV light is generated using an immensely hot tin plasma. Researchers at ARCNL, in close collaboration with the American Los Alamos National Laboratory, have unraveled how such a plasma emits EUV light at the atomic level, and have made unexpected discoveries, reporting that all excited energy states of tin were found to have the right energy to emit EUV light. The researchers published their findings in Nature Communications on May 11. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-exceptional-euv-hot-tin-plasma.html Plasma Physics Quantum Physics Mon, 11 May 2020 11:00:07 EDT news508151051