MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center
Encyclopedia
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
is a research laboratory for the study of plasma physics and nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
. Originally the Plasma Fusion Center, it was founded in 1976.
The PSFC consists of five interrelated divisions:
- Alcator C-ModAlcator C-ModAlcator C-Mod is a tokamak, a magnetically confined nuclear fusion device, at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. It is the tokamak with the highest magnetic field and highest plasma pressure in the world...
Project: Compact, high magnetic field tokamakTokamakA tokamak is a device using a magnetic field to confine a plasma in the shape of a torus . Achieving a stable plasma equilibrium requires magnetic field lines that move around the torus in a helical shape... - Fusion Technology and Engineering
- Physics Research Division
- Fusion Theory and Computation Group
- Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX): Levitated dipole magnetic confinement (collaboration with Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
) - Versatile Toroidal FacilityVersatile Toroidal FacilityThe Versatile Toroidal Facility is a research group within the Physics Research Division of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The VTF is a laboratory focused on studying the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection. For this purpose the group has a...
(VTF): Magnetic reconnectionMagnetic reconnectionMagnetic reconnection is a physical process in highly conducting plasmas in which the magnetic topology is rearranged and magnetic energy is converted to kinetic energy, thermal energy, and particle acceleration...
studies. - High Energy Density Physics (HEDP) Group
- Advanced Plasma DiagnosticsPlasma diagnosticsPlasma diagnostics are experimental techniques used to measure properties of a plasma such as temperature and density.-Langmuir probe:Measurements with electric probes, called Langmuir probes, are the oldest and most often used procedures for low-temperature plasmas...
Group - IonosphericIonosphereThe ionosphere is a part of the upper atmosphere, comprising portions of the mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere, distinguished because it is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an important part in atmospheric electricity and forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere...
Plasma Research Group - Plasma Technology
- Waves and Beams
The first director was Ronald Davidson
Ronald C. Davidson
Ronald C. Davidson is a Canadian physicist, professor and scientific administrator who works in the United States. He served as the first director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center from 1978 to 1988, and as director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory from 1991 to 1996...
, although prior to Davidson, Albert Hill was interim director during the formation of the Center. The Center was founded at the request and with the collaboration of the U.S. Department of Energy, which funds most of the research at the PSFC through a Cooperative Agreement. The original grant was for construction and operation of a tokamak reactor (Alcator, the predecessor of Alcator C-Mod).
Lawrence Lidsky, and MIT professor of Nuclear Engineering and Associate Director of the PFC until 1983, wrote an article in the MIT Technology Review
Technology Review
Technology Review is a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as "The Technology Review", and was re-launched without the "The" in its name on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R. Bruce Journey...
questioning the ultimate feasibility of Fusion and subsequently left his post at the PFC, although he continued as an MIT Faculty member.
Professors and students from a variety of departments work in the PSFC, along with the organic research staff and technicians, including Nuclear Science and Engineering, Physics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and others. This is in accordance with the interdisciplinary lab/center concept that is at the heart of many of MIT's laboratories and centers. No degree is granted by the PSFC itself, although many graduate and undergraduate theses are accomplished through working with the Center's staff.