Physical Research
Fusion Research on the Rise
Four AcademiaNet scientists work in this promising field
Nuclear fusion is the opposite to nuclear fission: While heavy elements release energy when they're split, light elements like hydrogen or helium release energy when their nuclei are fused. One advantage of the latter is the absence of long-term radioactive waste. But nuclear fusions only work under extreme temperatures, measured in millions of degrees centigrate – far too hot for any material vessel. This is why the hot plasma is enclosed by magnetic fields, a fact that makes the construction of fusion facilities not easier but more complicated.
Over the past decades, two main designs have emerged: tokamaks and stellarators. Both designs are donut-shaped, but in the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X, an innovative construction design allows for a (theoretically) continuous plasma containment within a magnetic field. Worldwide, more tokamaks are running or being built than stellarators. Here, plasma containment is facilitated by an electric current that runs through the plasma itself – but this current causes side effects that make a continuous operation even more intricate in tokamaks. Prof. Günter is an expert for both designs, for many years she was head of the research department Tokamak Theory at the IPP.
Prof. Ursel Fantz is head of the 'ITER Technology and Diagnostics' department at the IPP in Garching near Munich. ITER is a large-scale tokamak fusion experiment currently being built in France - a huge internation project. Besides fusion technology, Prof. Fantz' research interests are plasma diagnostics, ion sources and low-temperature plasmas. She received the 2006 Erwin Schrödinger Prize for the "Development of a High-Current RF-Driven Plasma Source for Negative Ions", that can be used as a heating source for ITER.
Prof. Mervi Mantsinen's research is focused on the the numerical modelling of experiments in magnetically confined fusion devices. Her work is a preparation for the ITER facility. In 2013, Prof. Mantsinen became research professor at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center of ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies). Before that, she has worked at the Joint European Torus JET in England, also a tokamak device and the most important precursor of ITER. Earlier she had worked at the IPP in Garching and had studied in Finland.
Prof. Tünde Fülöp is a theoretical plasma physicist at the Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Sweden. Her research focus is magnetic fusion and laser-plasma accelerators: those are particle accelerators that work with laser beams in plasma. In both research fields, Prof. Fülöp's interests are plasma stability, impurity transport (extremely hot plasmas need to be 'cleaned' continually), runaway particles that can leave the magnetic confinement, and radiation in the context of fusion experiments.
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