On that morning of December 5, for the first time ever, the lasers delivered 2.1. megajoules of energy and yielded 3.15 megajoules in return, achieving an historic fusion energy gain well above 1—a result verified by diagnostic tools developed by the MIT PSFC.
After 45 years at MIT’s PSFC and 15 years heading their High-Energy-Density Physics (HEDP) Division, Senior Research Scientist Richard Petrasso has stepped down to pursue new research interests.
PhD candidate Francesco Sciortino works at the PSFC on plasma turbulence in tokamaks, with an emphasis on computational statistics and machine learning methods.
From their home offices, four undergraduates this summer made significant contributions to research into high-energy-density physics projects at the PSFC.
Research scientist Maria Gatu Johnson, part of the PSFC’s High-Energy-Density Physics Division, will receive the American Physical Society’s Katherine E. Weimer Award, which recognizes outstanding plasma science research by a woman physicist in the early stages of her career.
Picard's study of the microwaves that speed from the megawatt gyrotron at MIT’s PSFC could lead the way to smaller and more powerful particle accelerators, the kind of finished product Picard finds rewarding.
Officially entitled the Center for Advanced Nuclear Diagnostics and Platforms for Inertial ICF and HEDP at Omega, NIF and Z, the new Center will focus on the properties of plasma under extreme conditions of temperature, density and pressure.
Particle accelerators are some of the biggest man-made machines, capable of endowing particles with tera-electron-volts of energy. A group led by Richard Temkin at MIT has designed and tested a “metamaterial” that offers potential advantages for wakefield acceleration.
“Once you start learning about plasma it points you towards fusion," says research scientist Kevin Woller, recalling his introduction to ion accelerators.
MIT graduate student Xueying Lu was named the 2018 Student Poster Winner at the Advanced Accelerator Concept (AAC) Workshop, a biennial forum for intensive discussions on long-term advanced accelerator physics and technology.
NSE PhD student, Leigh Ann Kesler who studies at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, dates her interest in fusion from an 11th-grade persuasive writing assignment. Inspired in part by her father’s interest in the potential of nuclear energy, she decided to investigate fusion.
When she was 16, Monica Pham mapped out her future. “My chemistry teacher was talking about how atoms could generate unlimited power,” recalls Pham. “I asked her what kind of person worked in this field, and when she said a nuclear engineer, I decided that’s what I wanted to be.”
PSFC graduate student Leigh Ann Kesler's main focus is erosion of materials inside fusion devices, in which strong magnetic fields keep the hot plasma fuel confined and away from the walls of the vacuum chamber where fusion reactions occur.
PSFC's Richard Petrasso, Chikang Li, and Fredrick Seguin were selected to share the award for “the pioneering use of proton radiography to reveal new aspects of flows, instabilities, and fields in high-energy-density (HED) plasmas.”
“The best thing I learned in grad school is not necessarily how to amplify 140 GHz; it’s really the ability to go back and challenge the fundamental axioms behind your entire design approach.” - PhD Candidate Sasha Soane
“It’s our responsibility to get beyond our walls and have a positive impact in the world”, says newly appointed assistant professor of nuclear sicnece and engineering Zach Hartwig.
NNSA’s Principal Assistant Deputy Administrator for Military Application Brig. Gen. Michael Lutton and Dr. Njema Frazier, physicist in the NNSA’s Office of Defense Programs, visited the MIT to meet with the High Energy Density and Inertial Confinement Fusion Physics Division of the PSFC.