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Emily A. Carter, former dean of the Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science, and most recently executive vice chancellor and provost at UCLA, has been named Senior Strategic Advisor for Sustainability Science at PPPL.

Theoretical and computational physicist Greg Hammett, a leader in advancing understanding of the complex turbulence that controls the performance of fusion plasmas and a dedicated educator, has been named a 2021 Distinguished Scientist Fellow by the DOE’s Office of Science.

The two awards will enable physicists to use lasers to reproduce high-energy astrophysical plasmas under extreme conditions to probe processes such as space storms that can disrupt cell phone service.

World-class expertise in the study of plasma — the hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions, that makes up 99 percent of the visible universe — has won frontier science projects for three physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The three-year awards provide PPPL principal research physicists Sam Cohen, Erik Gilson and Yevgeny Raitses with $330,000 each per year to pursue projects ranging from the study of plasma particles thousands of times thinner than a human hair to the formation of celestial bodies. The PPPL projects represent three of the nine awarded by DOE.

Collaboration led by PPPL has identified a chemical pathway to an innovative nanomaterial that could lead to large-scale production for applications ranging from spacesuits to military vehicles.

A quantum diamond sensor that can produce magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of single molecules will be developed by a collaborative venture led by PPPL.

Results of a heat-confinement experiment on the twisty Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Germany could enable devices based on the W7-X design to lead to a practical fusion reactor.

Scientists at PPPL have transferred a technique from one realm of plasma physics to another to enable the more efficient design of powerful magnets for doughnut-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks.

The virtual ninth annual global gathering presented leading experimental and theoretical methods for avoiding or mitigating the greatest challenge to doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion devices.