Plasma milestone reached for fusion research
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029447
BBC News : The Max Planck Institute’s stellarator in Germany has achieved a helium-based plasma at a temperature of 1 million degrees Celsius for one-tenth of a second, a new record for the facility. The €1 billion Wendelstein 7-X project, based at Greifswald in northeast Germany, used a microwave laser and just 10 mg of helium to generate the plasma last Thursday. Stellarators, unlike tokamak plasma machines, require complex-shaped magnetic fields to keep the plasma from degrading. Wendelstein 7-X’s design is the combination of 10 years of research into optimal magnetic fields. The researchers hope to use deuterium, a heavy hydrogen isotope, to generate higher temperatures and plasmas in the machine in the future.
