(62) The Sun in Our Hands: ITER, MPEX, and the Future of Nuclear Fusion Reactors

     When deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen, recombine in a plasma state to form helium, energy is released in a process called nuclear fusion. Fusion powers the stars and is the most abundant form of energy... [ view full abstract ]

     When deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen, recombine in a plasma state to form helium, energy is released in a process called nuclear fusion. Fusion powers the stars and is the most abundant form of energy in the universe. For over a century, scientists and engineers have been trying to synthesize fusion power, thereby bringing clean, cheap, and virtually limitless energy to the world. Nine countries have pooled their resources into the ITER project, a tokamak-type machine in France predicted at outputting 500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of input power. One of the major contributions of the United States is the materials science research for ITER’s container walls being conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory with the Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment (MPEX). I will present my results on the thermal modeling of a plasma-containing vessel using the finite-element method, as well as my experimental results on characterizing laboratory plasmas by means of Langmuir-probe traces and Paschen’s-law curves. I will also discuss how this work relates to my upcoming summer internship at MPEX.