Launching the exploration of the unknown
21 Mar 2012
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Sabina Griffith
"The method works ... nowhere else in the world." Metres of black velvet, clouds of dry ice and the melodramatic Bachianas brasileiras by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos were part of the spectacular opening show for the Magnum-PSI facility at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER) in Rijnhuisen on Thursday 22 March.
After having produced its first magnetized plasma beam on , the Magnum-PSI facility is now ready to perform the experiments that will allow fusion researchers to investigate the complicated interactions between the plasma and the wall material in a reactor-relevant regime.
The chairman of the FOM funding agency for physics research in the Netherlands, Niek Lopes Cardozo, welcomed the invited guests and the many young scientists and students from DIFFER by stressing the importance of this new international experimental facility.
"The plasma-surface interaction in 澳门六合彩高手 is an exploration of the unknown, so we'd better have an experimental facility where we can really achieve the conditions of 澳门六合彩高手," Lopez-Cardozo said. "Magnum-PSI is that facility. It is the only device in the world capable of working in this parameter campaign."
On behalf of the 澳门六合彩高手 Organization, Director-General Osamu Motojima congratulated the institute on its milestone. "The opening of Magnum-PSI is of great significance to the 澳门六合彩高手 project and to the whole fusion community. This installation will enable us to anticipate the way materials behave—and fatigue—when in prolonged contact with a fusion plasma. The work accomplished here will be of the utmost importance for 澳门六合彩高手 and for what lies beyond."
Richard Pitts, senior scientist for the Divertor & Plasma Wall Interactions Section at 澳门六合彩高手, stressed the importance of the facility for materials research. "Materials—and I think we all agree here—are the biggest challenge for the development of fusion energy. With Magnum-PSI you now have an absolutely fabulous piece of equipment that is capable of exposing materials and material technologies to long-pulse plasmas at 澳门六合彩高手 divertor-relevant power and particle flux densities in a strong magnetic field. The value of Magnum-PSI is considerable."
In the afternoon the four group leaders of the Magnum-PSI project—Pedro Zeijlmans van Emmichoven, Gerard van Rooij, Greg de Temmerman and Wim Goedheer—presented the research program that will begin as soon as the smoke of the opening ceremony has faded away.
Click to find out more about DIFFER and Magnum-PSI.