South Korea's nuclear fusion experimental device succeeds in maintaining 100 million degrees hot plasma for 30 seconds

Research on nuclear fusion reactors is being actively carried out around the world in order to utilize the thermal energy generated by nuclear fusion reactions as a next-generation power generation system. Newly, South Korea's nuclear fusion reactor ' KSTAR ' succeeded in maintaining plasma exceeding 100 million degrees for 30 seconds in a more stable state than before.

A sustained high-temperature fusion plasma regime facilitated by fast ions | Nature
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05008-1

Korean nuclear fusion reactor achieves 100 million °C for 30 seconds
https://www.shiningscience.com/2022/09/korean-nuclear-fusion-reactor-achieves.html

KSTAR is a tokamak-type nuclear fusion experimental device operated by South Korea that generates a strong magnetic field and confines ultra-high temperature plasma inside the device. In 2018, KSTAR succeeded in generating plasma of 100 million degrees, and in 2020, it maintained the plasma of 100 million degrees for 20 seconds, breaking the record for high temperature maintenance time at that time.

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And in September 2022, we reported that we maintained plasma of 100 million degrees for 30 seconds. In June 2021, China's nuclear reactor 'EAST' set a record of maintaining plasma of 120 million degrees for 101 seconds , and KSTAR's '30 seconds' high temperature maintenance time is the world's longest in terms of length. It's not a record breaker. However, the KSTAR record this time uses a newly developed technology for stable plasma control, and it is expected that the record will be extended in the future by upgrading the equipment of the experimental reactor.

In order to maintain high-temperature plasma for a long time, it is necessary to suppress 'plasma movement' as much as possible, and two types of transport , 'peripheral transport barrier (ETB)' and 'internal transport barrier (ITB)', are used to control plasma movement. It is important to deepen our understanding of barriers . A Korean research team applied the research results on ITB to KSTAR, and succeeded in generating plasma of 100 million degrees while keeping the plasma density low.

In this experiment, KSTAR stopped responding after 30 seconds due to hardware limitations. The research team says that the reproducibility of this experiment will increase if the KSTAR upgrade is completed. On the other hand, Dominic Power, who studies nuclear fusion at Imperial College London, said, ``The results of this experiment are very exciting. So, I don't know if it will work with fusion experimental equipment such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) , which is much larger than KSTAR.'