NEWS: High-field pathway to fusion power

An large, flat, oval-shaped metal container with holes in the sides and a large magnet inside placed around a post.

March 4, 2024

Tests show high-temperature superconducting magnets are ready for fusion

In the predawn hours of Sept. 5, 2021, engineers achieved a major milestone in the labs of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), when a new type of magnet, made from high-temperature superconducting material, achieved a world-record magnetic field strength of 20 tesla for a large-scale magnet. That’s the intensity needed to build a fusion power plant that is expected to produce a net output of power and potentially usher in an era of virtually limitless power production.

MIT News

Ian Hutchinson standing in front of Alcator C-Mod tokamak

November 29, 2022

Ian Hutchinson: Probing Plasma

“When I look up at the moon with my sweetheart, my wife of 48 years, I imagine that streaming from its dark side are electron holes that my students and I predicted and that we then discovered,” says Ian Hutchinson. “It’s quite sentimental to me.”

MIT News

Diagram of SPARC tokamak

April 6, 2022

Turning neutrons into fusion fuel

“One of the things that you get good at while at MIT,” says PSFC research scientist Sara Ferry, “is being able to start from nothing on a particular system or skill and knowing how to approach it in a way that’s effective.”

PSFC News

20T magnet Demo Event Highlights, MIT

September 24, 2021

VIDEO: Highlights of the MIT-CFS 20T Magnet Demo event

On Sunday, September 5, 2021, a large-bore, high temperature superconducting magnet designed and built by CFS and MIT reached a field of 20 tesla. It paves the way to building SPARC and commercializing fusion energy. These are highlights from the Live-Streamed 20 Tesla HTS Magnet Demo Event

Star in a bottle, MIT

September 8, 2021

VIDEO: A Star in a Bottle: The Quest for Commercial Fusion

On Sept. 5, 2021, for the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped up to a field strength of 20 tesla, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth. That successful demonstration by the PSFC and CFS helps resolve the greatest uncertainty in the quest to build the world’s first fusion power plant that can produce more power than it consumes.

HTS Magnet, MIT

September 8, 2021

VIDEO: Unlocking SPARC: HTS Magnet for Commercial Fusion Applications

An animation of how the high temperature superconducting (HTS) fusion magnet built by MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS)was tested. Reaching a field of 20 tesla, it is the most powerful superconducting magnet in the world and a key technology in SPARC, a compact, high-field tokamak that will produce net energy from fusion.

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

Vinny Fry, MIT

June 24, 2021

Wired for Success

MIT engineer, Vinny Fry is preparing to help test SPARC’s Toroidal Field Magnet Coil (TFMC), a scaled prototype for the HTS magnets that will surround the tokamak’s toroidal vacuum chamber to confine the plasma.

PSFC

Diagram of ARCH concept

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

February 3, 2021

Keeping an eye on the fusion future

"When I actually got into the depths of fusion, seeing what the PSFC was doing - nothing ever compared,” says graduate student Dan Korsun.

PSFC News

David Fischer, MIT

October 20, 2020

Pushing the envelope with fusion magnets

Postdoctoral associate David Fischer's research focuses on observing ways irradiation damages the thin high-temperature superconductor tapes in the design of ARC, a fusion pilot plant concept.

PSFC

SPARC, MIT

September 29, 2020

Validating the physics behind SPARC

This series of papers provides a high level of confidence in the plasma physics and the performance predictions for SPARC. No unexpected impediments or surprises have shown up, and the remaining challenges appear to be manageable. This sets a solid basis for the device’s operation once constructed, according to Martin Greenwald, Deputy Director of MIT PSFC.

MIT News

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

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