Advanced Tokamak
The DIII-D user facility at General Atomics in San Diego, California, is the largest magnetic fusion research experiment in the U.S., and can magnetically confine plasmas at temperatures relevant to burning plasma conditions. Researchers from the U.S. and abroad perform experiments on DIII-D for studying stability, confinement, and other properties of fusion-grade plasmas under a wide variety of conditions. The DIII-D research goal is to establish the scientific basis to optimize the tokamak approach to magnetic confinement fusion. Much of this research concentrates on developing the advanced tokamak concept, in which active control techniques are used to manipulate and optimize the plasma to obtain conditions scalable to robust operating points and high fusion gain for future fusion reactors. Another high-priority DIII-D research area is foundational fusion science, pursuing a basic scientific understanding across all fusion plasma topical areas.
