Researchers from the EUROfusion consortium, in which Técnico represents Portugal, announced scientific results from their record-breaking experimental campaign at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion facility, in Culham, UK, in 2021. These results, announced at the 29th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, include the first observations of alpha heating, the process by which the fusion reaction can keep its fuel hot.

Other important results include control techniques to protect the walls of fusion machines, heating techniques, and ways to recover fusion fuel absorbed in the walls of the machine.

The scientific results involved several researchers from the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion (IPFN) at Técnico. Bruno Gonçalves, President of IPFN, says “the IPFN researchers made significant and valuable contributions to our fundamental understanding of the complex physical phenomena associated with deuterium-tritium plasmas and to the preparation of some of the key experiments at JET”.

“Portuguese researchers contributed with state-of-the-art plasma simulation codes, developing advanced data analysis and interpretation methods, contributing to the scientific planning of experiments”, he adds. In addition, they led the development of microwave diagnostics, data acquisition for several sensors crucial for measurement during this campaign (e.g. neutron and gamma-ray diagnostics) and data acquisition systems for plasma control.

The second deuterium-tritium experimental campaign (DTE2) at JET in 2021 set a world record of 59 megajoules for the most fusion heat produced in a single shot, which received great public interest when announced in February 2022. The conclusions obtained during these projects will be important for future fusion experiments, such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), currently under construction in France.