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MIT Plasma Science And Fusion Center
The Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a university research center for the study of Plasma (physics), plasmas, Nuclear fusion, fusion science and technology. It was originally founded in 1976 as the Plasma Fusion Center (PFC) at the request and with the collaboration of the United States Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy. The original grant was for construction and operation of a tokamak reactor Alcator A, the first in a series of small, high-field tokamaks, followed by Alcator C (1978) and Alcator C-Mod (1993). MIT's most recent tokamak, Alcator C-Mod, ran from 1993 to 2016. In 2016, the project pressure reached 2.05 atmospheres—a 15 percent jump over the previous record of 1.77 atmospheres with a plasma temperature of 35 million degrees C, sustaining fusion for 2 seconds, yielding 600 trillion fusion reactions. The run involved a 5.7 tesla magnetic field. It reached this milestone on its final day of op ...
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MIT Plasma Science And Fusion Center 01
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and science. In response to the increasing Technological and industrial history of the United States, industrialization of the United States, William Barton Rogers organized a school in Boston to create "useful knowledge." Initially funded by a land-grant universities, federal land grant, the institute adopted a Polytechnic, polytechnic model that stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. MIT moved from Boston to Cambridge in 1916 and grew rapidly through collaboration with private industry, military branches, and new federal basic research agencies, the formation of which was influenced by MIT faculty like Vannevar Bush. In the late twentieth century, MIT became a leading center for research in compu ...
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Alcator C-Mod Graduate Students In Control Room
Alcator C-Mod was a tokamak (a type of magnetically confined fusion device) that operated between 1991 and 2016 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). Notable for its high toroidal magnetic field (of up to 8 Tesla), Alcator C-Mod holds the world record for volume averaged plasma pressure in a magnetically confined fusion device. Until its shutdown in 2016, it was one of the major fusion research facilities in the United States. Alcator C-Mod was the third of the Alcator (''Alto Campo Toro'', High Field Torus) tokamak series, following Alcator A (1973–1979) and Alcator C (1978–1987). It was the largest fusion reactor operated by any university and was an integral part of the larger Plasma Science and Fusion Center. History Alcator A In the late 1960s, magnetic-confinement fusion research at MIT was carried out on small-scale "table-top" experiments at the Research Laboratory for Electronics and the Francis Bitt ...
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Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and science. In response to the increasing Technological and industrial history of the United States, industrialization of the United States, William Barton Rogers organized a school in Boston to create "useful knowledge." Initially funded by a land-grant universities, federal land grant, the institute adopted a Polytechnic, polytechnic model that stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. MIT moved from Boston to Cambridge in 1916 and grew rapidly through collaboration with private industry, military branches, and new federal basic research agencies, the formation of which was influenced by MIT faculty like Vannevar Bush. In the late twentieth century, MIT became a leading center for research in compu ...
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Research Center
Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity * Central tendency, measures of the central tendency (center) in a set of data Places United States * Centre, Alabama * Center, Colorado * Center, Georgia * Center, Indiana * Center, Warrick County, Indiana * Center, Kentucky * Center, Missouri * Center, Nebraska * Center, North Dakota * Centre County, Pennsylvania * Center, Portland, Oregon * Center, Texas * Center, Washington * Center, Outagamie County, Wisconsin * Center, Rock County, Wisconsin **Center (community), Wisconsin *Center Township (other) *Centre Township (other) *Centre Avenue (other) *Center Hill (other) Other countries * Centre region, Hainaut, Belgium * Centre Region, Burkina Faso * Centre Region (Cameroon) * Cen ...
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Plasma (physics)
Plasma () is a state of matter characterized by the presence of a significant portion of charged particles in any combination of ions or electrons. It is the most abundant form of ordinary matter in the universe, mostly in stars (including the Sun), but also dominating the rarefied intracluster medium and Outer space#Intergalactic space, intergalactic medium. Plasma can be artificially generated, for example, by heating a neutral gas or subjecting it to a strong electromagnetic field. The presence of charged particles makes plasma electrically conductive, with the dynamics of individual particles and macroscopic plasma motion governed by collective electromagnetic fields and very sensitive to externally applied fields. The response of plasma to electromagnetic fields is used in many modern devices and technologies, such as plasma display, plasma televisions or plasma etching. Depending on temperature and density, a certain number of neutral particles may also be present, in wh ...
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Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear fusion is a nuclear reaction, reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei combine to form a larger nuclei, nuclei/neutrons, neutron by-products. The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of energy. This difference in mass arises as a result of the difference in nuclear binding energy between the atomic nuclei before and after the fusion reaction. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers all active stars, via many Stellar nucleosynthesis, reaction pathways. Fusion processes require an extremely large Lawson criterion, triple product of temperature, density, and confinement time. These conditions occur only in Stellar core, stellar cores, advanced Nuclear weapon design, nuclear weapons, and are approached in List of fusion experiments, fusion power experiments. A nuclear fusion process that produces atomic nuclei lighter than nickel-62 is generally exothermic, due t ...
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United States Department Of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy-related research, and energy conservation. The DOE was created in 1977 in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis. It sponsors more physical science research than any other U.S. federal agency, the majority of which is conducted through its system of National Laboratories. The DOE also directs research in genomics, with the Human Genome Project originating from a DOE initiative. The department is headed by the secretary of energy, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the Cabinet. The current secretary of energy is Chris Wright, who has served in the position since February 2025. The department's headquarters are in sou ...
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Tokamak
A tokamak (; ) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field generated by external magnets to confine plasma (physics), plasma in the shape of an axially symmetrical torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement fusion, magnetic confinement devices being developed to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. The tokamak concept is currently one of the leading candidates for a practical fusion reactor for providing minimally polluting electrical power. The proposal to use controlled thermonuclear fusion for industrial purposes and a specific scheme using thermal insulation of high-temperature plasma by an electric field was first formulated by the Soviet physicist Oleg Lavrentiev in a mid-1950 paper. In 1951, Andrei Sakharov and Igor Tamm modified the scheme by proposing a theoretical basis for a thermonuclear reactor, where the plasma would have the shape of a torus and be held by a magnetic field. The first tokamak was built in the Soviet Union ...
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Alcator C-Mod
Alcator C-Mod was a tokamak (a type of magnetically confined fusion device) that operated between 1991 and 2016 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). Notable for its high toroidal magnetic field (of up to 8 Tesla), Alcator C-Mod holds the world record for volume averaged plasma pressure in a magnetically confined fusion device. Until its shutdown in 2016, it was one of the major fusion research facilities in the United States. Alcator C-Mod was the third of the Alcator (''Alto Campo Toro'', High Field Torus) tokamak series, following Alcator A (1973–1979) and Alcator C (1978–1987). It was the largest fusion reactor operated by any university and was an integral part of the larger Plasma Science and Fusion Center. History Alcator A In the late 1960s, magnetic-confinement fusion research at MIT was carried out on small-scale "table-top" experiments at the Research Laboratory for Electronics and the Francis Bitt ...
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SPARC (tokamak)
SPARC is a tokamak under development by Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). Funding has come from Eni, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Temasek, Equinor, Devonshire Investors, and others. SPARC plans to verify the technology and physics required to build a power plant based on the ARC fusion power plant concept. SPARC is designed to achieve this with margin in excess of breakeven and may be capable of achieving up to 140 MW of fusion power for 10 second bursts despite its relatively compact size. The project is scheduled to start operations in 2026, with the goal of demonstrating net power (Q > 1) in 2027. It was previously scheduled for operation in 2025 after completing a magnet test in 2021. History The SPARC project was announced in 2018 with a planned completion in 2025. The name was chosen as an abbreviation of "Smallest Possible ARC", where ARC ...
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Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is an American fusion power company founded in 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after a spin-out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Its stated goal is to build a small fusion power plant based on the ARC tokamak design. It has participated in the United States Department of Energy’s INFUSE public-private knowledge innovation scheme, with several national labs and universities. History CFS was founded in 2018 as a spin-off from the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. After initial funding of $50 million in 2018 from the Italian multinational Eni, CFS closed its series A round of venture capital funding in 2019 with a total of US$ 115 million in funding from Eni, Bill Gates's Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Vinod Khosla's Khosla Ventures, and others. CFS raised an additional US$ 84 million in series A2 funding from Singapore's Temasek, Norway's Equinor, and Devonshire Investors, as well as from previous investors. As o ...
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Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide
Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) is a family of crystalline chemical compounds that display high-temperature superconductivity; it includes the first material ever discovered to become superconducting above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen [] at about . Many YBCO compounds have the general formula (also known as Y123), although materials with other Y:Ba:Cu ratios exist, such as (Y124) or (Y247). At present, there is no singularly recognised theory for high-temperature superconductivity. It is part of the more general group of rare-earth barium copper oxides (ReBCO) in which, instead of yttrium, other rare earths are present. History In April 1986, Georg Bednorz and Karl Müller, working at IBM in Zurich, discovered that certain semiconducting oxides became superconducting at relatively high temperature, in particular, a lanthanum barium copper oxide becomes superconducting at 35 K. This oxide was an oxygen-deficient perovskite-related material that proved pro ...
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