NEWS: Plasma-based technologies

A glass torus glows with purple plasma

Student-Designed “Altator” Achieves First Plasma

For the first time since 2016, a toroidal device housed at the PSFC has produced plasma, and it’s thanks to the work of ten graduate students. Named Altator in homage to the experimental tokamak that operated at the PSFC from 1994 to 2016, the students’ device is a miniature version that will be used to show visitors how plasma flows and is confined within the donut-shaped architecture of a tokamak’s design.