Fusion plasma confinement could be enhanced with magnetic fields breakthrough

13 Jan, 2025
Image: Interesting Engineering

For decades, scientists have been working to develop reactors that can achieve fusion to meet the increasing need for clean and limitless energy.

The success of such experiments depends on multiple key factors, including optimized magnetic fields that could display enhanced fusion plasma confinement.

Introduced by researchers at Laboratorio Nacional de Fusión–CIEMAT, the new family of magnetic fields is claimed to be better suited for confining particles in fusion devices.

With the help of such magnetic field, the researchers highlight that the devices won’t require complex equipment configurations. The new development is claimed to be a key step for the realization of fusion reactors.

Researchers focused on less understood magnetic fields that could inform the design of future stellarator reactors.

José Luis Velasco, first author of the new research, stated that in the last years, there have been many initiatives proposing the design and construction of new experimental fusion devices and reactor prototypes.

“The fact that inspired our research is that the fusion community actually knew that it is possible to have magnetic fields that are quite far from being omnigenous but still display good plasma confinement (e.g., the Large Helical Device, an experimental device operating in Japan, and some old and recent numerical experiments in U.S.).”

Velasco underlined that, to achieve omnigenity, it is necessary to optimize the stellarator ‘as a whole.’  

Researchers found that similarly good confinement properties are obtained if one ‘splits’ each magnetic surface of the stellarator into several pieces and optimizes each of them separately. Hence the name ‘piecewise omnigenous,’ reported

Sourse: IAEA

Image: Interesting Engineering

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