Dec 25, 2020 12:00:00

The world record of artificial sun is updated, succeeded in maintaining 100 million degree plasma for 20 seconds

Korea's nuclear fusion device,

KSTAR , has successfully maintained an ultra-high temperature plasma with an ion temperature of over 100 million degrees for 20 seconds, setting a new world record for the time it takes to maintain an artificial sun.

Korean artificial sun, KSTAR, sets the new world record of 20-sec-long operation at 100 million °C | EurekAlert! Science News
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-12/nrco-kas122420.php

Korean artificial sun sets the new world record of 20-sec-long operation at 100 million degrees
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-korean-artificial-sun-world-sec-long.html

Seoul National University and Columbia University in the United States jointly conducted an experiment to generate high-temperature plasma using KSTAR. You can see what kind of device KSTAR is by watching the following movie.

KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) by drone-YouTube


KSTAR is a tokamak-type nuclear fusion device, which is a system that confines ultra-high temperature plasma in a strong magnetic field. In order to achieve a nuclear fusion reaction similar to that of the Sun, hydrogen isotopes were placed inside a container wrapped in KSTAR's giant coils, creating a plasma state in which ions and electrons were separated, and heated to high temperatures. must be maintained.

There have been nuclear fusion devices that have been able to maintain a plasma at a temperature of 100 million degrees or more for a short period of time, but have never been able to maintain that state for more than 10 seconds. This is because it is difficult to maintain enough magnetism to form plasma at a high temperature of 100 million degrees.

KSTAR succeeded in reaching a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees for the first time in 2018. At this time, it was possible to hold about 1.5 seconds. And in the 2019 experiment, we were able to hold 100 million degree plasma for 8 seconds. This experiment more than doubled the 2019 record.

Woo Yun Shi, Director of the KSTAR Research Center, said, 'The technology required to maintain ultra-high temperature plasma of 100 million degrees for a long time is the key to realizing fusion energy and is an important component of future commercial fusion reactors. will be an important turning point in the race to establish the technology to sustain ultra-high temperature plasma for a long time.'

In addition, KSTAR's final goal is 'to maintain plasma exceeding 100 million degrees for 300 seconds by 2025'.