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A detailed examination of the challenges and tradeoffs in the development of a compact fusion facility with high-temperature superconducting magnets.

The DOE has extended until 2022 its contract with Princeton University to manage the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, which is dedicated to enabling the scientific breakthroughs required to develop fusion as a safe, clean and abundant energy source.

Findings from an international team of scientists show that twisted magnetic fields can evolve in only so many ways, with the plasma inside them following a general rule.

Feature describes the first fully kinetic model of plasma particles showing that fast reconnection can indeed occur in partially ionized plasma.

Feature describes use of Magnetorotational Instability Experiment at PPPL to confirm an important mechanism involved in star formation.

Feature describes prototype of new device that mitigates disruption of fusion plasmas faster than the most developed techniques today.

EarthCam has named the remote-control RGDX experiment at PPPL one of the 25 most interesting webcams of 2018.

Sudden bursts of heat that can damage the inner walls of tokamak fusion experiments are a hurdle that operators of the facilities must overcome. Such bursts, called 'edge localized modes (ELMs),' occur in doughnut-shaped tokamak devices that house the hot, charged plasma that is used to replicate on Earth the power that drives the sun and other stars. Now researchers at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have directly observed a possible and previously unknown process that can trigger damaging ELMs.

Feature describes newly discovered stabilizing effect of underappreciated 1983 finding that variations in plasma temperature can influence the growth of magnetic islands that lead to disruption of fusion plasmas.