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My PhD Research visit to KSTAR in February 2015:
The beginning of a long journey

Report by Maximilian Messmer. Powered by FuseNet

February 1st marked the start of my PhD program at the University of Technology in Eindhoven. For the next four years I will work in cooperation with NFRI, the National Fusion Research Institute of South Korea, located in Daejeon, on the implementation of a Motional Stark Effect (MSE) spectroscopy system at the KSTAR Tokamak.

During the visit to Daejeon the annual KSTAR Conference was held, which provided in three days a great overview of the various research efforts taking place at NFRI, the status of the Tokamak and a nice way to engage with the team behind KSTAR operation. A big bonus of the conference for me were the lunches, where traditional Korean food was served which gave me a first taste of what cuisine to expect from the country. One of the served dishes being the all-omnipresent Kimchi, a side dish of fermented cabbage in spicy sauce – hate it or love it? I’m not sure yet…

The rest of the two weeks stay were well spent on working together with my colleagues at NFRI, getting to know the team, the hardware setup and planning the future steps to bring the system into operation by August 2015.

Sadly, time flies and during such a brief visit everything besides work falls very short so I only got a glimpse of Daejeon. I am looking forward to my next visit, which will give me four months to explore the country, meet the people and get to know their culture! A big thank you goes to Jinil Chung and Jinseok Ko for their hospitality – tto bwayo!