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Recent experiments carried out at the DIII-D tokamak in San Diego have allowed scientists to observe how fusion plasmas spontaneously turn off the plasma turbulence responsible for most of the heat loss in plasmas confined by toroidal magnetic fields. Using a new microwave instrument based on the same principles as police radar guns, researchers from UCLA observed the complex interplay between plasma turbulence and plasma flows occurring on the surface of tokamak plasmas.

A major upgrade to the DIII-D tokamak fusion reactor operated by General Atomics in San Diego will enable it to develop fusion plasmas that can burn indefinitely.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Heated to extreme temperatures of up to 150 million degrees Celsius, the plasma in ITER's giant experimental fusion reactor will be fed a fuel of frozen pellets of deuterium-tritium, fired into the tokamak vacuum vessel by pellet injectors. Testing of the most recent pellet injection design technology developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and US ITER is under way this fall at the DIII-D research tokamak in San Diego, operated by General Atomics for the Department of Energy through the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences.