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DIFFER unveils Magnum-PSI

DIFFER unveils Magnum-PSI

Creating hotter, denser plasmas than ever before: that's the goal of the new Magnum-PSI facility at the FOM Institute DIFFER. On Thursday 22 March, the new experiment celebrated the start of its experimental campaign with a scientific symposium in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands.
Magnum-PSI is designed to investigate the interplay between the hot plasma in a fusion reactor and the reactor wall materials. After an unveiling ceremony, Director-General Motojima of the ITER International Organization opened the symposium.

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Magnum-PSI is the first facility in the world capable of creating the intense plasma conditions near the wall of the future fusion reactor ITER. The reactor will commence operations in 2020 and the wall materials of its exhaust or divertor are scheduled to be replaced a few times during the reactor's lifetime.
Magnum-PSI will help design the improved wall materials to replace the first divertor. The experiment is designed to investigate plasma-surface interactions, both to detail all the processes modifying the surface and to see what effect the strong interactions near the surface have on the upstream plasma.

Live performance

Fusion experts from across Europe attended the Magnum-PSI opening symposium. After an introduction speech by FOM and FUSENET Chairman Niek Lopes Cardozo, the guests attended a live performance in a darkened Magnum hall.
Black curtains hid the experiment from view until classical singer Martha Bosch presented it to the audience. The guests then had the opportunity to inspect the new facility up close.

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After the unveiling ceremony followed a symposium opened by Director-General Osamu Motojima of the ITER international organisation followed by ITER's head of Plasma-Wall Interactions Richard Pitts. Both stressed the unique capabilities of Magnum-PSI and were looking forward to the light it would shed on plasma surface interactions at the ITER divertor.

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Dutch plasma physics research: from Rijnhuizen to DIFFER

In 2012, the Dutch Institute for Plasma Physics 'Rijnhuizen', one of the three institutes of the physics funding agency FOM, broadened its mission to "Science for Future Energy".
The new FOM Institute DIFFER (Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research) continues the plasma and fusion-related research of Rijnhuizen and will also start up research in the field of Solar Fuels, buffering the inherently fluctuating power of sustainable energy sources such as wind or PV in chemical bonds.

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