NEWS: Alcator C-Mod tokamak

March 2, 2023

Francesco Sciortino receives Piovesan Study Award

Recent MIT graduate Francesco Sciortino (MIT PhD’21) has been honored with the 2022 Piovesan Award for the best PhD thesis in "physics of controlled fusion." 

PSFC News

October 19, 2022

2022 Ronald C. Davidson Award goes to Ian H. Hutchinson

AIP Publishing has selected MIT Professor Ian H. Hutchinson as the recipient of its 2022 Ronald C. Davidson Award for Plasma Physics for his paper, “Electron holes in phase space: What they are and why they matter.”

AIP Publishing

July 14, 2022

Donald “Bruce” Montgomery, former PSFC Associate Director, dies at 89

It is with great sadness and profound appreciation that we note the passing at age 89, of Dr. Donald Bruce Montgomery, a pioneer in the development and engineering of large-scale electro-magnets.

PSFC News

May 13, 2022

Researchers stick out their necks to understand how fusion plasmas fuel up

MIT’s Aaron Rosenthal and other researchers are using a new camera diagnostic to understand neutral particles at the boundary of fusion devices.

Energy.Gov

March 22, 2022

Martin Greenwald: Finding the questions that guide MIT fusion research

As Martin Greenwald retires from the PSFC, he reflects on time at MIT, pursuing the question of how to make the carbon-free energy of fusion a reality.

PSFC News

February 22, 2022

John Rice on Plasma Rotation

John Rice's new book "Driven Rotation, Self-Generated Flow, and Momentum Transport" consolidates an understanding of the topic gained from years of experience at MIT.

PSFC News

February 9, 2022

Tuning in to invisible waves on the JET tokamak

In England for the last two years, research scientist Alex Tinguely has been overseeing a special antenna used on the UK’s record-breaking fusion experiment.

PSFC News

July 9, 2021

Magnet Man

After overseeing three years of research and development, Brian LaBombard is ready to test a toroidal field model coil (TFMC), a prototype for those that will be used in the new fusion experiment, SPARC.

PSFC News

April 26, 2021

Candid-camera capture

MIT graduate student Aaron Rosenthal and colleagues from PPPL use a pinhole camera technique to answer questions about what is happening in the edge of hot plasmas confined in tokamaks.

PSFC News

April 12, 2021

On course to create a fusion power plant

Since taking on course 22.63 (Principles of Fusion Engineering) over a decade ago Prof. Dennis Whyte has moved away from standard lectures, prodding the class to work collectively on  “real world” issues. The course has been instrumental in guiding the real future of fusion at the PSFC.

PSFC News

December 18, 2020

Three Questions: Francesco Sciortino on his HTPD invited talk

PhD candidate Francesco Sciortino works at the PSFC on plasma turbulence in tokamaks, with an emphasis on computational statistics and machine learning methods.

PSFC

January 27, 2020

Nathan Howard wins Nuclear Fusion Award

Nathan Howard, research scientist at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, has won the 2019 Nuclear Fusion Award for a paper that explains heat losses due to turbulence in the core of magnetically confined fusion plasmas.

PSFC

November 22, 2019

Heating by Cooling

As a graduate student Pablo Rodriguez-Fernandez (PhD’19) became intrigued by a fusion research mystery that had remained unsolved for 20 years. His novel observations and subsequent modeling helped provide the answer, earning him the 2019 Del Favero Thesis Prize.

PSFC

November 20, 2018

Reaching in and out at the APS DPP meeting

Along with traditional outreach activities the PSFC introduced SPARC for the first time at a scientific conference during technical sessions devoted to MIT’s high-field approach to fusion.

PSFC

August 22, 2018

Pushing the limit

Researchers at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) have now demonstrated how microwaves can be used to overcome the barriers to steady state tokamak operation. In experiments performed on MIT’s Alcator C-Mod tokamak, research scientist Seung Gyou Baek and his colleagues have studied a method of driving current to heat the plasma called Lower Hybrid Current Drive.

PSFC

May 24, 2018

Rick Leccacorvi receives 2018 Infinite Mile Award

Mechanical design and fabrication specialist Rick Leccacorvi was honored with a 2018 Infinite Mile Award on May 23. His work designing experimental apparatus for physicists and students at the PSFC has received continued enthusiastic appreciation from his peers.

PSFC

May 4, 2018

Spinning data into sound

Prof. Joe Paradiso is using a modular synthesizer to translate data into artful sound – specifically data from one of the final fusion experiments on the Plasma Science and Fusion Center’s (PSFC) Alcator C-Mod tokamak. 

PSFC

April 3, 2018

Theresa Wilks: Fine-tuning fusion on DIII-D

Postdoc Theresa Wilks’s interest lies in the edge of the hot plasma closest to the tokamak’s chamber walls. Changes within these few centimeters, known as the ‘edge pedestal,’ can significantly affect the turbulence in the plasma, possibly leading to better control of the plasma and greater energy production.  

PSFC News

November 3, 2017

Connecting with students, teachers and research colleagues at APS-DPP

The annual APS Division of Plasma Physics meeting is an opportunity to present research, acknowledge their colleagues accomplishments, educate visitors about the value of plasmas in their everyday lives.

PSFC

August 22, 2017

Fusion heating gets a boost

Fusion researchers at the PSFC, with colleagues in Belgium and the UK, have created a new method of heating fusion plasmas in tokamaks. The new method has resulted in raising trace amounts of ions to megaelectronvolt (MeV) energies — an order of magnitude greater than previously achieved.

PSFC

May 23, 2017

PSFC technicians receive 2017 Infinite Mile Award

The Alcator C-Mod Team of RDTEU Technicians at the PSFC was cited for their dedication which "goes way above and beyond the “normal” call of duty."

PSFC

February 23, 2017

Funding fusion could be the key to clean energy

Andrew Lo, Director of the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, proposed a fusion fund in the form of a private-public partnership guided by a board of advisers. “We’re only asking for $10 billion for fusion to fuel the rest of the human race," Lo said. "I would argue we can’t afford not to try.”

Sloan School of Management Online Newsletter

October 24, 2016

PSFC invites the public to “Ask Me Anything”

A reddit Q&A session turns the Alcator C-Mod control room into a classroom for the general public.

PSFC

October 14, 2016

New record for fusion

Alcator C-Mod tokamak nuclear fusion reactor sets world record on final day of operation.

PSFC

October 14, 2016

Alcator C-Mod pressure record: FAQ

On September 30^th 2016 the Alcator C-Mod team set the plasma pressure record for a magnetically confined fusion device. For the first time anywhere the team obtained plasma pressures higher than 2 atmospheres.

PSFC