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Eye witness report from the Hands-On PlasmaLab@TU/e Course 2013, part 2

Eye witness report from the Hands-On PlasmaLab@TU/e Course 2013, part 2

The students at the course work in groups. For the second group of 5 students, Marina from Ukraine reports on their experiences.


I should be there!

The moment I found the information about PlasmaLab @TU/e on the FuseNet website, I realized that I should be there. It is a hands-on course and I did not have much experience with high-tech laboratory setups, so it was extremely interesting for me to take part in it.

I was happy to know that there were students from Italy, Germany, France and Spain - the group is really international, so I could not only perform the plasma experiments, but also learn a little bit Italian, French and improve my German and English skills.

On the first day we all got to know each other, giving a small presentation of ourselves. Then we were divided into three groups of five people.

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Group 2 working out the theory with supervisor Roger Jaspers

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Working with laser spectroscopy to determine densities and plasma temperatures

The Big Three

Our work was concentrated around three big experiments: laser spectroscopy, waves in plasma and the fusor. At the end of the week we would make a presentation of the last experiment that we worked on. Luckily, our last experiment turned out to be the fusor (because it seemed the most interesting device to us). We tried to achieve the best conditions for fusion reactions in the fusor, which turned out to be far from trivial.

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Counting neutrons in the Bubble detector

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Analyzing the data

A great experience... despite the weather!

A week spent working together as a team was a lot of fun! Tomorrow we are going to make our final presentation on the fusor experiment. I hope everyone will enjoy it ;)

We are all grateful to Roger, Hans, Herman, Mark, Chiel and TU/e for such a warm welcome, for their help and tips during the experiments and just for a perfect company. I also want to underline that I like the university very much! It is so modern and it is so comfortable to work here.

Sadly the weather in Eindhoven was not so good for a walk through the city centre, but we were all able to find a bar or a restaurant for a nice dinner together for a couple of times, and spend some great time there getting to better know each other in a more informal environment.

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Your FuseNet reporter was not the only one taking photos of plasmas...

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Good team-work in measuring the Paschen Curve

So, I'm very happy to be taking part in the PlasmaLab Hands-on course, I've already acquired a lot of useful practical experience, met some very interesting people, improved my English and of course had a chance to see the Kingdom of the Netherlands!

Maryna Goncharenko, and Joris Fellinger, Carlo Poggi, Francesco Sgarlata, Manuel Zolchow.