NEWS: SPARC

Portrait of Richard Ibekwe

Understanding imperfections in fusion magnets

MIT Energy Fellow Richard Ibekwe is attracted to the challenges of fusion research."There are few problems as hard to solve or that might have as profound a potential positive impact on our planet and the whole of humanity,” he says.
 

PSFC News

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

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

VIPER cable assembly, MIT

Superconductor technology for smaller, sooner fusion

A team led by MIT’s PSFC and MIT spinout company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, has developed and extensively tested an HTS cable technology that can be scaled and engineered into the high-performance magnets.

PSFC

SPARC, MIT

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

Congratulations!

Meet our 2020 graduates

Norman Cao, Daniel Korsun, Adam Kuang, and Pyae Phyo graduate on May 29 in MIT's virtual commencement.

PSFC

IAP fusor workshop inaugurates Nuclear Maker Space

Research engineer Willy Burke had never heard of a “fusor.” Now he has guided the successful creation of 14 fusors, in the process inaugurating a new maker space sponsored by the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, the PSFC, and MIT’s office of Environmental Health and Safety.

PSFC

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

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

Dennis Whyte, MIT

The fusion energy dream

American investment would help ensure that the United States becomes the home of a world-changing — and potentially world-saving — technology.

Washington Post

Demonstrating the fundamentals of fusion

October provided the PSFC with consecutive opportunities to educate students and the general public about the science and technology that support plasma fusion research: MIT Energy Night at the MIT Museum, and the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics (APS-DPP) Plasma Science Expo in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

PSFC

Martin Greenwald, MIT

For Green Energy, MIT Aims To Build 'A Star On Earth'

The future of fusion energy is right around the corner. You'll find it off Massachusetts Avenue, on Albany Street in Cambridge. It's on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an old, low-rise, brown brick building once owned by Nabisco.

WBUR

Brandon Sorbom, CFS

Brandon Sorbom: Tech Review 35InnovatorsUnder35

By developing an electromagnetic system using high-temperature superconductors to insulate part of the fusion process, Sorbom’s breakthrough could make fusion power plant designs dramatically cheaper to build.

MIT Technology Review

Talking fusion at the MIT Energy Conference

On April 4 the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) joined Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) at the MIT Energy Conference Tech Showcase, to demonstrate the magnetic and plasma properties that underlie fusion technologies.

PSFC

Looking Forward to Fusion

Fusion power has been a tantalizing prospect for decades, promising a source of endless carbon-free energy for the world. MIT’s PSFC, in collaboration MIT alumni-led company CFS, is poised to use materials breakthroughs to build the first fusion device that generates more energy than it consumes, bringing commercial fusion energy within practical reach in the near future.

Spectrum