MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center

🇺🇸 Cambridge, US · Founded 1976 · Active

Also known as PSFC, MIT PSFC, Plasma Fusion Center

The Plasma Science and Fusion Center is a research centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1976 as the Plasma Fusion Center, with Department of Energy support, to build and run the Alcator A tokamak. Alcator C followed in 1978 and Alcator C-Mod in 1993; C-Mod ran until 2016 and set a plasma pressure record of 2.05 atmospheres on its final day. Since 2018 the centre has worked with Commonwealth Fusion Systems on the design of the SPARC tokamak, which uses high-temperature superconducting magnets. Wikipedia puts its size at more than 250 researchers, staff and students.

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Sector: Fusion
Technology: Tokamak
Role: University, Research institute, Operator

It is the operator of record for Alcator A (shut down) and Alcator C (shut down). Measured results for Alcator A, Alcator C are listed below.

Terms

Tokamak: Doughnut-shaped magnetic confinement using a strong toroidal field plus a current driven through the plasma itself. The most-studied configuration, and the one ITER uses. Its main open problem is heat exhaust at the divertor, where the plasma edge concentrates power onto a small area, together with the risk of disruptions: sudden, uncontrolled losses of the plasma current.