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Dr. Agnieszka Zaraś-Szydłowska from the Department of Laser Plasma Physics and Applications and Dr. Tomasz Fornal from the Department of Nuclear Fusion and Plasma Spectroscopy received NCN grants under the MINIATURA 7 competition for the implementation of individual research activities.

In the MINIATURA 7 competition organized by the National Science Center, researchers could plan their activities in the form of preliminary research, pilot research, research internship, research trip or consultation trip.

Dr. Zaraś-Szydłowska was awarded a grant for preliminary research for the project entitled "Preparation of a diagnostic system for interferometric measurements of femtosecond laser-induced plasma parameters for future research related to inertial fusion."

The project involves the construction and installation of an interferometric diagnostic system, the so-called complex interferometer, to study the parameters of the plasma generated as a result of the interaction of a terawatt laser pulse with a thin foil and its use during an experimental session at the High-Power Laser Laboratory located at the IPPLM. Comprehensive interferometry is a combination of standard interferometry and polarimetry and allows obtaining information on the distribution of electron concentration and spontaneous magnetic fields, which parameters are important in plasma research with a view to obtaining inertial fusion and in astrophysical research. The main goal of the project is to record high-quality comprehensive interferograms for various plasma expansion times.

The second winner, Dr. Fornal, will complete a research internship at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Greifswald. "Development of numerical codes for studying the behavior of light impurities in the plasma of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator" is the topic of his project.

During the three-month internship, work will be carried out on the development of software for data acquisition from the C/O monitor spectroscopic system for the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator. The activities will include the development of a code for operating the detectors, taking into account the specificity of fusion experiments, as well as the creation of numerical tools for the analysis of experimental data. The internship will enable Dr. Fornal to test the software in experimental conditions, providing the necessary access to the intranet infrastructure of the W7-X stellarator. The ultimate goal of the project is to obtain high-quality measurement data for precise analyzes of light impurities in the W7-X plasma.

We would like to congratulate the winners and wish them success in their research work!

Photo: IPPLM High-Power Laser Laboratory. © IPPLM

The Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion has become a partner of the European Innovation Council (EIC). The EIC was established under Horizon Europe to support breakthrough innovation. EIC partners are selected under the EIC Ecosystem Partnership and Co-Investment Support program.

Among services offered by the IPPLM under the EIC are:

• Conducting technical tests and analyses, including compliance tests
• Manufacturing of equipment and devices related to conducted research and development works
• Preparation of opinions and expertise other than scientific research and development works

The IPPLM profile in the EIC catalog is available at: https://partnerservices.eismea.eu/partners

Fusion studies are of strategic importance for the civilizational and economic development of the community of European countries and the whole world. The IPPLM, as a leader and national coordinator of research work in Poland in the field of plasma physics and the development of nuclear fusion technology, contributes in many fields of activities in national and international projects, which are the subject of the cooperation of a number of partners. In general, but not exhaustively, the most propitious areas for mutual cooperation are in the scope of energy, environment and technology, are plasma accelerators, pulsed plasma neutron sources, irradiation target improvements, materials testing and research, developments related to IFMIF-DONES facility, developments related to JET, W7X, ITER and many others fusion devices.

Researchers from the EUROfusion consortium announced scientific results from their record-breaking experimental campaign at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion facility in 2021. These results, announced at the 29th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference in London, include the first observations of alpha heating, the process by which the fusion reaction can keep its fuel hot. Other important results include control techniques to protect the walls of fusion machines, heating techniques, and ways to recover fusion fuel absorbed in the walls of the machine. The work will prove crucial to operate future fusion experimental machines such as ITER and demonstrates the potential of fusion as a future energy source, say the researchers.

In 2021, the EUROfusion consortium of fusion laboratories around Europe, including Polish researchers from the Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (IPPLM) in Warsaw, ran a dedicated experimental campaign at the Joint European Torus facility (JET) in Culham, UK to explore the extreme conditions expected in the international ITER fusion energy research project and the fusion power plants to follow.

The researchers reached conditions including temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius inside the donut-shaped cloud of plasma (hot, charged gas) that is suspended inside JET's magnetic field cage.

"One of our most eye-catching results is the first detailed observation of the fusion fuel keeping itself hot through alpha heating. This is the process where high-energy helium ions (alpha particles) coming out of the fusion reaction transfer their heat to the surrounding fuel mix to keep the fusion process going", says Costanza Maggi, a UKAEA Fellow and former JET Task Force Leader. "Studying this process under realistic conditions is crucial to developing fusion power plants."

JET interior with superimposed plasma. Credit: UKAEA courtesy of EUROfusion

First look at alpha heating and other results

The results presented by the researchers will prove crucial to inform the design and operation of future fusion experimental machines running on deuterium-tritium (a fusion fuel mix of two hydrogen isotopes used to produce fusion energy) fuel. Most results have been published in a special issue of the scientific journal Nuclear Fusion, with the work on alpha heating appearing in the prestigious scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

• The first observations of alpha heating, where the high-energy helium ions (alpha particles) produced by fusion reactions keep the surrounding fuel mix hot enough without disturbing fusion conditions.
• A successful demonstration of a control technique to protect the walls of the exhaust system. This divertor is the only part of a tokamak (a donut-shaped device used to confine hot plasma) that comes into direct contact with the hot fuel and needs to withstand more intense conditions than spaceships re-entering Earth's atmosphere.
• The experiments confirmed predictions from advanced computer models for heat transport inside the plasma, which are crucial to extrapolate results from current experimental setups to larger future machines like ITER and DEMO.
• Successful tests of methods to recover tritium fuel that has been absorbed by the interior metal wall of the tokamak. Efficient recovery of tritium is key to the operation and end-of-life decommissioning of fusion machines.
• Verified a heating technique planned for the ITER project to deposit external heating exactly where needed. The demonstration gives confidence in the design and planned operation of the international fusion project ITER.

Record-setting experiments

JET is the only operating fusion machine of the tokamak design that can produce large amounts of fusion reactions, because of its unique capability to operate with the fuel mix deuterium-tritium. This is the high-performance fuel mix planned for the international ITER project and the future European demonstration fusion power plant DEMO.

The second deuterium-tritium experimental campaign (DTE2) at JET in 2021 set a world record of 59 megajoules for the most fusion heat produced in a single shot, which received great public interest when announced in February 2022.

Record DT shot 99971. Credit: EUROfusion consortium

Volker Naulin, Head of the EUROfusion Fusion Science Department, said:

"The DTE2 campaign has been prepared over many years. The scientific results and the energy record achieved at JET in 2021 show that we understand and control fusion plasma under conditions as close to those in future fusion devices as we can get. We predicted and finally showed that we can produce, maintain, and study fusion under high-performance conditions, for as long as the machine allows. This confirms that we are on the right path to fusion energy to the grid."

Ambrogio Fasoli, Director of the Swiss Plasma Center and Programme Manager-elect of EUROfusion, said:

"The JET DTE2 campaign has enriched the formidable knowledge on magnetic fusion that’s provided the basis for the operation of ITER operation. It will also help guide the development of DEMO, which is the backbone device of the European strategy towards fusion power plants. The scientific results included work on plasma conditions and materials compatible with power plants and crucial information for the overall European strategy. They provide a crucial basis for a safe approach to burning plasma in ITER."

Fernanda Rimini, JET Senior Exploitation Manager (UKAEA), said:

"The foundations of the JET success lie in the vision, ambition and exceptional combination of physics and engineering talent of the design team: they produced a device with unique characteristics for the times, namely size and D-T capability, but they also fostered an environment rewarding the dialogue and tight integration between physics and engineering. The tradition of excellence was continued by the JET Team, working over the last 40 years to advance fusion research."

Agata Chomiczewska, national coordinator of research at the JET tokamak, IPPLM, said:

"We are glad that Polish researchers are contributing to the success achieved at the JET tokamak during the DTE2 campaign. The thing about science is that we are constantly discovering something new. There are still many challenges ahead of us, but thanks to our common determination in pursuing the goal, the prospect of commercial fusion power plants becomes real."

40 years of fusion science

JET is the largest and most successful fusion experiment in the world, and a central research facility of the European Fusion Programme. JET is based at the UKAEA campus in Culham, UK and is collectively used by more than 31 European laboratories under the management of the EUROfusion consortium—experts, students, and staff from across Europe, co-funded by the European Commission.

Fusion researchers across Europe and beyond celebrated the 40th anniversary of JET's first plasma shot on Sunday 25 June this year. Since its inception in 1983, JET has been at the forefront of groundbreaking achievements, spearheading the pursuit of safe, low-carbon, and sustainable fusion energy solutions to meet the world's future energy demands.

Over its lifetime, JET has delivered crucial insights into the complex mechanics of fusion, allowing scientists to plan the international fusion experiment ITER and DEMO, the demonstration fusion power plant currently under design by the European fusion community.

JET Torus Hall. Credit: UKAEA courtesy of EUROfusion

Fusion energy’s potential

Fusion, the process that powers stars like our sun, promises a near-limitless clean baseload electricity source for the long term, using small amounts of fuel that can be sourced worldwide from inexpensive materials. The fusion process brings together atoms of light elements like hydrogen at high temperatures to form helium and release tremendous energy as heat. Fusion is inherently safe in that it cannot start a run-away process and produces no long-lived waste.

Source: EUROfusion

"Science is a journey into the future" - this is the slogan of the 27th edition of the Science Festival in Warsaw on 15-29 September 2023.

As part of the Festival, researchers from the Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion prepared classes for students conducted at the Institute’s premises.

Dr. Ewa Łaszyńska and Dr. Katarzyna Mikszuta-Michalik during the lesson entitled "Radiation around us" told fourth-grade primary school students in an accessible way about nuclear radiation and methods of its detection. During a visit to the Gamma Radiation Spectrometry Laboratory, participants carried out radiation measurements of products used in everyday life, including food products.

During the classes entitled Fuzor – an experiment "in practice" Dr. Piotr Chmielewski and M.Sc. Eng. Maciej Szymański explained to the students what plasma and nuclear fusion is and how the work of plasma-containing devices, such as a tokamak or a stellarator looks like. In the laboratory, high school students learned about the structure and principles of operation of a fusion reactor with electrostatic-inertial plasma maintenance of the fusor type. Students could observe, among others, the influence of gas pressure on the current-voltage characteristics and the nature of the discharge, and also measured the temperature of the reactor cathode using an optical pyrometer. Additionally, after the main meeting, the participants visited the PF1000U Laboratory.

The Warsaw Science Festival is a series of meetings with scientists who present the latest achievements, research methods and challenges for the future in an accessible way. The topics of festival meetings concern exact and natural sciences, medicine, humanities and social sciences, as well as cultural and artistic sciences. The events take the form of debates, lectures, workshops, film screenings, visits to laboratories, exhibitions, trips, competitions and educational games. The Festival also includes lessons for organized school groups at all levels of education. Events are organized by scientific, educational and cultural institutions as well as scientific associations and societies.

Photo: © IPPLM

On 18-22 September 2023, the international scientific conference PLASMA 2023 on plasma research and applications was held in Warsaw. The event was organized by the Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion. The conference was attended by almost 100 participants from 16 countries including Belgium, China, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Serbia, the United States, Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The topics covered during the conference included:

• Plasmas in tokamaks and stellarators. Magnetic confinement fusion
• Plasmas generated by laser beams. Inertial confinement fusion
• Space plasmas and laboratory astrophysics
• Dusty plasmas
• Plasma diagnostics. Measurements and data processing, including AI
• Plasma medicine
• Elementary processes, general plasma physics.

The chairperson of the International Scientific Committee was Monika Kubkowska, IPPLM Professor, Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs, and the Local Organizing Committee was headed by Agata Chomiczewska, IPPLM Professor.

During the conference, there were 22 invited lectures, 21 oral presentations and two poster sessions with 40 posters.

During the second day of the event, a plenary session was held on groundbreaking achievements in the field of nuclear fusion. Dr. Ernesto Lerche from the Culham Science Center (UKAEA), LPP-ERM/KMS discussed the landmark results obtained by European researchers in December 2021 on the world's largest device for carrying out controlled thermonuclear reactions, namely JET (Joint European Torus) tokamak, which is located in the UK. Dr. Clement Trosseille from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States presented the success of American researchers related to obtaining a positive energy balance in the process of laser nuclear fusion in December 2022 and July 2023.

In addition to the conference participants, the session was also attended by media representatives, including: PAP, Gazeta.pl, Focus.pl, Postępy Techniki Jądrowej, representatives of national institutions, students as well as high school students.

The plenary session was broadcast on the IPPLM YouTube channel. It can currently be viewed on: www.youtube.com/@ifpilm/streams

The project is co-financed by the state budget funds under the program of the Minister of Education and Science called "Excellent science II - support for scientific conferences: International Conference on Research and Applications of Plasmas - PLASMA 2023”, project No. KONF/SN/0198/2023/01.

Event sponsors: EKSPLA, Hamamatsu, IRtech Sp. z o.o., Precoptic, Quantum Design, Tespol Sp. z o.o. oraz Krajowy Punkt Kontaktowy Euratom-IFPiLM. Partner: Applied Science journal.

The next edition of the PLASMA conference will take place in 2025.