After a decade of design and fabrication, General Atomics is ready to ship the first module of the Central Solenoid, the world's most powerful magnet. It will become a central component of ITER, a machine that replicates ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 15, 2021
3
14
The main criticism about nuclear fusion has been that its vast potential as a commercial source of energy has always been just out of reach.
Plasma Physics
Jan 6, 2021
4
245
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, ...
Plasma Physics
Aug 18, 2020
2
350
Beryllium, a hard, silvery metal long used in X-ray machines and spacecraft, is finding a new role in the quest to bring the power that drives the sun and stars to Earth. Beryllium is one of the two main materials used for ...
Plasma Physics
Jul 2, 2019
4
6
A key obstacle to controlling on Earth the fusion that powers the sun and stars is leakage of energy and particles from plasma, the hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei that fuels fusion ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 11, 2019
0
47
For the first time, scientists are measuring the rotation of the main (deuterium) plasma in the edge region of a fusion device. New spectroscopic measurements combined with state-of-the-art spectroscopic simulation made this ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 19, 2019
1
8
Like surfers catching ocean waves, particles within the hot, electrically charged state of matter known as plasma can ride waves that oscillate through the plasma during experiments to investigate the production of fusion ...
Plasma Physics
Jan 17, 2019
0
14
Sudden bursts of heat that can damage the inner walls of tokamak fusion experiments are a hurdle that operators of the facilities must overcome. Such bursts, called "edge localized modes (ELMs)," occur in doughnut-shaped ...
Plasma Physics
Jan 16, 2019
14
81
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) and General Atomics engineers have created an inertial confinement fusion (ICF) fuel capsule with a two-micron-diameter fill tube—and along the way, ...
General Physics
Dec 13, 2018
0
8
Before scientists can capture and recreate the fusion process that powers the sun and stars to produce virtually limitless energy on Earth, they must first learn to control the hot plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions. ...
Plasma Physics
Aug 22, 2018
1
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