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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 973 records · Page 54
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Thermal confinement and transport in spherical tokamaks: a review

Here, we review the thermal plasma confinement and transport properties observed and predicted in low aspect ratio tokamaks, or spherical tokamaks (STs), which can depart significantly from those observed at higher aspect ratio. In particular, thermal energy confinement scalings show a strong, near linear dependence of energy confinement time on toroidal magnetic field, while the dependence on plasma current is more modest, the opposite of what is seen at higher aspect ratio. STs have revealed a very strong improvement in normalized confinement with decreasing collisionality, much stronger than at higher aspect ratio, which bodes well for an ST-based fusion pilot plant should this trend continue at an even lower collisionality than has already been accessed. These differences arise because of fundamental differences in transport in STs due to the more extreme toroidicity (i.e. reduced region of bad curvature), and to the relatively larger $E_r \times B$ shearing rates, both of which can suppress electrostatic drift wave instabilities at both ion and electron gyroradius scales. In addition, electromagnetic effects are much stronger in STs because they operate at high β T . Gyrokinetic (GK) studies, coupled with low- and high-k turbulence measurements, have shed light on the underlying physics controlling transport. At lower β T , both ion- and electron-scale electrostatic drift turbulence may be responsible for transport. At higher β T , microtearing, kinetic ballooning, and hybrid trapped electron/kinetic ballooning modes increasingly play a role, and they have a much stronger impact in the core of ST plasmas than at higher aspect ratio. Flow shear affects the balance between ion- and electron-scale modes. Non-linear GK simulations find regimes where the electron heat flux decreases with decreasing collisionality, consistent with the experimental global normalized confinement scaling. The ST is unique in that the relatively low toroidal magnetic field allows for localized measurements of electron-scale turbulence, and this coupled with turbulence measurements at ion-scales has facilitated detailed comparisons with GK simulations. These data have provided compelling evidence for the presence of ion temperature gradient and electron temperature gradient turbulence in some plasmas, and direct experimental support for the impact of experimental actuators like rotation shear, density gradient and magnetic shear on turbulence and transport.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Particle-in-cell modeling of electron beam generated plasma

Plasmas generated using energetic electron beams are well known for their low electron temperature (T e ) and plasma potential, which makes them attractive for atomic-precision plasma processing applications such as atomic layer etch and deposition. A 2-dimensional particle-in-cell model for an electron beam-generated plasma in argon confined by a constant applied magnetic field is described here in this article. Plasma production primarily occurs in the path of the beam electrons in the center of the chamber. The resulting plasma spreads out in the chamber through non-ambipolar diffusion with a short-circuiting effect allowing unequal electron and ion fluxes to different regions of the bounding conductive chamber walls. The cross-field transport of the electrons (and thus the steady-state characteristics of the plasma) are strongly impacted by the magnetic field. T e is anisotropic in the electron beam region, but low and isotropic away from the plasma production zone. The plasma density increases and the plasma becomes more confined near the region of production when the magnetic field strengthens. The magnetic field reduces both electron physical and energy transport perpendicular to the magnetic field. T e is uniform along the magnetic field lines and slowly decreases perpendicular to it. Electrons are less energetic in the sheath regions where the sheath electric field repels and confines the low-energy electrons from the bulk plasma. Even though electron and ion densities are similar in the bulk plasma due to quasi-neutrality, electron and ion fluxes on the grounded chamber walls are unequal at most locations. Electron confinement by the magnetic field weakens with increasing pressure, and the plasma spread out farther from the electron beam region.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Fast electron transport dynamics and energy deposition in magnetized, imploded cylindrical plasma

Inertial confinement fusion approaches involve the creation of high-energy-density states through compression. High gain scenarios may be enabled by the beneficial heating from fast electrons produced with an intense laser and by energy containment with a high-strength magnetic field. Here, we report experimental measurements from a configuration integrating a magnetized, imploded cylindrical plasma and intense laser-driven electrons as well as multi-stage simulations that show fast electrons transport pathways at different times during the implosion and quantify their energy deposition contribution. The experiment consisted of a CH foam cylinder, inside an external coaxial magnetic field of 5 T, that was imploded using 36 OMEGA laser beams. Two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamic modelling predicts the CH density reaches 9.0 g cm − 3 , the temperature reaches 920 eV and the external B-field is amplified at maximum compression to 580 T. At pre-determined times during the compression, the intense OMEGA EP laser irradiated one end of the cylinder to accelerate relativistic electrons into the dense imploded plasma providing additional heating. The relativistic electron beam generation was simulated using a 2D particle-in-cell (PIC) code. Finally, three-dimensional hybrid-PIC simulations calculated the electron propagation and energy deposition inside the target and revealed the roles the compressed and self-generated B-fields play in transport. During a time window before the maximum compression time, the self-generated B-field on the compression front confines the injected electrons inside the target, increasing the temperature through Joule heating. For a stronger B-field seed of 20 T, the electrons are predicted to be guided into the compressed target and provide additional collisional heating. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Prospects for high gain inertial fusion energy (part 2)’.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Interface‐Induced Stability of Nontrivial Topological Spin Textures: Unveiling Room‐Temperature Hopfions and Skyrmions

Topological spin configurations, such as soliton-like spin texture and Dirac electron assemblies, have recently emerged in fundamental science and technology. Achieving stable topological spin textures at room temperature is crucial for their use as long-range information carriers. However, their creation and manipulation are hindered by multi-step field training and competing interactions. Thus, a spontaneous ground state for multidimensional topological spin textures is desirable, with skyrmions forming swirling, hedgehog-like spin structures in two dimensions and hopfions as their twisted 3D counterparts. Here, the first observation of robust and reproducible topological spin textures of hopfions and skyrmions observed at room temperature and in zero magnetic field is reported, which are stabilized by geometric confinement and protected by interfacial magnetism in a ferromagnet/topological insulator/ferromagnet trilayer heterostructure. These skyrmion-hopfion configurations are directly observed at room temperature with Lorenz transmission electron microscopy. Using micromagnetic modeling, the experimental observations of hopfion-skyrmion assemblies are reproduced. This model reveals a complete picture of how spontaneously organized skyrmion lattices encircled by hopfion rings are controlled by surface electrons, uniaxial anisotropy, and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. This study provides evidence that topological chiral spin textures can facilitate the development of magnetic topological carriers, paving the way for ultralow-power and high-density information processing.

hopfions↗
DOE OSTI2025

Tokamak Disruption Simulation (Final Technical Report)

The Tokamak Disruption Simulation collaboration was a SciDAC (Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing) program led by Xianzhu Tang of the Los Alamos National Laboratory but with separate grants to each institution. I was the PI for Columbia University and the only person at Columbia directly funded by this SciDAC. Disruptions are a sudden loss of confinement in tokamaks, and a reliable method of preventing disruptions must be developed before tokamak fusion power plants become feasible. A related plasma confinement concept, the stellarator, is the only way known way of preventing disruptions with the required reliability. The largest devices, both existing and under construction, for confining plasmas for fusion using magnetic fields are tokamaks, so it is important to solve their disruption issues. The sudden loss of confinement in tokamaks can be from a bit of material falling into the plasma, which causes the plasma energy to be quickly lost by radiation, or by an instability causing a breakup of the confining surfaces formed by the magnetic field. This breakup can occur more than a million times faster than one would naively think possible. The sudden breakup of surfaces is called a fast magnetic reconnection and also results in a sudden cooling of the plasma.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Targeted Optimization of Quasi-Symmetric Stellarators

The proposed research focuses on targeted areas of plasma physics dedicated to improving the stellarator concept. Research was pursued in the technical areas of edge/divertor physics in 3D configurations, magnetic island physics in stellarators, the role of 3D shaping on microinstabilities and turbulent transport and energetic ion confinement in stellarators.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Characterization of compact-toroid injection during formation, translation, and field penetration

We have developed a compact toroid (CT) injector system for particle refueling of the advanced beam-driven C-2U field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasma. The CT injector is a magnetized coaxial plasma gun (MCPG), and the produced CT must cross the perpendicular magnetic field surrounding the FRC for the refueling of C-2U. To simulate this environment, an experimental test stand has been constructed. A transverse magnetic field of ∼1 kG is established, which is comparable to the C-2U axial magnetic field in the confinement section, and CTs are fired across it. On the test stand we have been characterizing and studying CT formation, ejection/translation from the MCPG, and penetration into transverse magnetic fields.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Electron cyclotron emission detection of neoclassical tearing modes for control for ITER

Successful operation of ITER requires control of magnetic instabilities including neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs) that can degrade confinement and lead to disruption. Low latency detection by electron cyclotron emission (ECE) diagnostics has been demonstrated in a few current experiments. Using a synthetic diagnostic, we demonstrate low latency NTM detection for ITER with plasmas described by ITER IMAS database scenarios and with realistic limitations imposed on the instrumentation by these high temperature scenarios. 2/1 NTMs are detected 430 ms after magnetic island seeding and before island locking. The radiometer configuration was optimized using simulation, and the smallest detectable island size was explored. Island sizes of ∼3 cm are detectable at the 2/1 surface. The simulated signals incorporate recent physics models for island growth and rotation, which show early locking and continued island growth after locking and before disruption. This work determines limits for ITER ECE spatial resolution imposed by relativistic broadening of channels, which informs hardware design. Real-time detection is demonstrated in hardware that is required by ITER, including on an NI PXI-7853R FPGA system. Development of a synthetic diagnostic and details of the hardware will be discussed.

Cyclotron radiation↗
DOE OSTI2019

Delayed Gamma Signature Accounting for Field Line Transport of Debris Ions after a Nuclear Explosion

Delayed gammas (DGs) are produced by the decay of radioactive fission fragments after a nuclear explosion. Currently, the time and energy profile of the delayed gamma signal is propagated in DIORAMA to the GEO satellite sensors by assuming a point source at the burst location for the production of the delayed gammas. However, in reality the production of delayed gammas is spread over some spatial extent. First, the debris ions are confined within an expanding region by the magnetic field and/or surrounding plasma. This expanding confinement bubble eventually collapses, at which point the debris ions can be trapped on magnetic field lines and transported away from the original burst location. In this work the effects of debris ion transport on the associated time profile of delayed gammas at a GEO satellite is presented. The first step was the development of the Delayed Gamma Source Model (DGSM), which is based on the analytical Electron Source Model (ESM) code developed at LANL that models the spatial distribution of energetic electrons produced after a high-altitude nuclear explosion (HANE) for use as a source term in LANL artificial belt diffusion code. This model creates a spatial grid in latitude, longitude, and altitude of the distribution of radioactive debris ions. The output of this code is combined with a separate analysis code also described, which produces the DG time profile signature at a GEO sensor faceplate when accounting for the spatial spread of delayed gamma production during field line transport. Some simple case studies are presented to show how the DG signature at GEO calculated with this higher-fidelity model and a simple point-source model, as is currently assumed in DIORAMA, compare.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Overview of the JET results

Since the installation of an ITER-like wall, the JET programme has focused on the consolidation of ITER design choices and the preparation for ITER operation, with a specific emphasis given to the bulk tungsten melt experiment, which has been crucial for the final decision on the material choice for the day-one tungsten divertor in ITER. Integrated scenarios have been progressed with the re-establishment of long-pulse, high-confinement H-modes by optimizing the magnetic configuration and the use of ICRH to avoid tungsten impurity accumulation. Stationary discharges with detached divertor conditions and small edge localized modes have been demonstrated by nitrogen seeding. The differences in confinement and pedestal behaviour before and after the ITER-like wall installation have been better characterized towards the development of high fusion yield scenarios in DT. Post-mortem analyses of the plasma-facing components have confirmed the previously reported low fuel retention obtained by gas balance and shown that the pattern of deposition within the divertor has changed significantly with respect to the JET carbon wall campaigns due to the absence of thermally activated chemical erosion of beryllium in contrast to carbon. Lastly, transport to remote areas is almost absent and two orders of magnitude less material is found in the divertor.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Discontinuous properties of current-induced magnetic domain wall depinning

The current-induced motion of magnetic domain walls (DWs) confined to nanostructures is of great interest for fundamental studies as well as for technological applications in spintronic devices. Here, we present magnetic images showing the depinning properties of pulse-current-driven domain walls in well-shaped Permalloy nanowires obtained using photoemission electron microscopy combined with x-ray magnetic circular dichroism. In the vicinity of the threshold current density (Jth 5 4.2 3 1011 A.m22 ) for the DW motion, discontinuous DW depinning and motion have been observed as a sequence of ‘‘Barkhausen jumps’’. A one-dimensional analytical model with a piecewise parabolic pinning potential has been introduced to reproduce the DW hopping between two nearest neighbour sites, which reveals the dynamical nature of the current-driven DW motion in the depinning regime.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2024

Magnetic fields with general omnigenity

Omnigenity is a desirable property of toroidal magnetic fields that ensures confinement of trapped particles. Confining charged particles is a basic requirement for any fusion power plant design, but it can be difficult to satisfy with the non-axisymmetric magnetic fields used by the stellarator approach. Every ideal magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium previously found to approximate omnigenity has been either axisymmetric, quasi-symmetric or has poloidally closed contours of magnetic field strength $B$ . However, general omnigenous equilibria are a much larger design space than these subsets. A new model is presented and employed in the DESC stellarator optimization suite to represent and discover the full parameter space of omnigenous equilibria. Although exact omnigenity aside from quasi-symmetry is impossible, these results reveal that excellent particle confinement can be achieved in practice. Examples far from quasi-symmetry with poloidally, helically and toroidally closed $B$ contours are attained with DESC and shown to have low neoclassical collisional transport and fast particle losses.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Progress in the development of an H{sup −} ion source for cyclotrons

A multi-cusp DC H{sup −} ion source has been developed for cyclotrons in medical use. Beam optics of the H{sup −} ion beam is studied using a 2D beam trajectory code. The simulation results are compared with the experimental results obtained in the Mark I source, which has produced up to 16 mA H{sup −} ion beams. The optimum extraction voltages show good agreement between the calculation and the experimental results. A new ion source, Mark II source, is designed to achieve the next goal of producing an H{sup −} beam of 20 mA. The magnetic field configurations and the plasma electrode design are optimized for Cs-seeded operation. Primary electron trajectory simulation shows that primary electrons are confined well and the magnetic filter prevents the primary electrons from entering into the extraction region.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Preparation of magnetized nanodusty plasmas in a radio frequency-driven parallel-plate reactor

Nanodust is produced in an rf-driven push-pull parallel-plate reactor using argon with an acetylene admixture at 5–30 Pa. A scheme for the preparation of nanodust clouds with particle radii up to 400 nm for investigations in magnetized plasmas is proposed. The confinement that keeps the nanodust of different radii inside a moderately magnetized discharge (B ≤ 500 mT) is investigated by a comparison of 2d-Langmuir probe measurements in the dust-free plasma without and with a magnetic field and by the analysis of scattered light of nanodust clouds. It is shown that the dust cloud changes its shape when the dust density changes. This results in a reversed α-γ{sup ′} transition from a dense dust cloud with a central disk-like void to a dilute dust cloud with a toroidal void. When the dust density is further reduced, filaments are observed in the central part of the cloud, which were absent in the high-density phase. It is concluded that the dense nanodust cloud is able to suppress plasma filamentation in magnetized plasmas.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Revealing giant internal magnetic fields due to spin fluctuations in magnetically doped colloidal nanocrystals

Strong quantum confinement in semiconductors can compress the wavefunctions of band electrons and holes to nanometre-scale volumes, significantly enhancing interactions between themselves and individual dopants. In magnetically doped semiconductors, where paramagnetic dopants (such as Mn 2+ , Co 2+ and so on) couple to band carriers via strong sp–d spin exchange, giant magneto-optical effects can therefore be realized in confined geometries using few or even single impurity spins. Importantly, however, thermodynamic spin fluctuations become increasingly relevant in this few-spin limit. In nanoscale volumes, the statistical √N fluctuations of N spins are expected to generate giant effective magnetic fields B eff , which should dramatically impact carrier spin dynamics, even in the absence of any applied field. In this paper, we directly and unambiguously reveal the large B eff that exist in Mn 2+ -doped CdSe colloidal nanocrystals using ultrafast optical spectroscopy. At zero applied magnetic field, extremely rapid (300–600 GHz) spin precession of photoinjected electrons is observed, indicating B eff ~ 15-30 T for electrons. Precession frequencies exceed 2 THz in applied magnetic fields. Finally, these signals arise from electron precession about the random fields due to statistically incomplete cancellation of the embedded Mn 2+ moments, thereby revealing the initial coherent dynamics of magnetic polaron formation, and highlighting the importance of magnetization fluctuations on carrier spin dynamics in nanomaterials.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Effects of q-profile structure on turbulence spreading: A fluctuation intensity transport analysis

This paper studies effects of q-profile structure on turbulence spreading. It reports results of numerical experiments using global gyrokinetic simulations. We examine propagation of turbulence, triggered by an identical linear instability in a source region, into an adjacent, linearly stable region with variable q-profile. The numerical experiments are designed so as to separate the physics of turbulence spreading from that of linear stability. The strength of turbulence spreading is measured by the penetration depth of turbulence. Dynamics of spreading are elucidated by fluctuation intensity balance analysis, using a model intensity evolution equation which retains nonlinear diffusion and damping, and linear growth. It is found that turbulence spreading is strongly affected by magnetic shear s, but is hardly altered by the safety factor q itself. There is an optimal range of modest magnetic shear which maximizes turbulence spreading. For high to modest shear values, the spreading is enhanced by the increase of the mode correlation length with decreasing magnetic shear. However, the efficiency of spreading drops for sufficiently low magnetic shear even though the mode correlation length is comparable to that for the case of optimal magnetic shear. The reduction of spreading is attributed to the increase in time required for the requisite nonlinear mode-mode interactions. The effect of increased interaction time dominates that of increased mode correlation length. Our findings of the reduction of spreading and the increase in interaction time at weak magnetic shear are consistent with the well-known benefit of weak or reversed magnetic shear for core confinement enhancement. Weak shear is shown to promote locality, as well as stability.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Magnetized ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability in three dimensions

Three-dimensional extended-magnetohydrodynamics simulations of the magnetized ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability are presented. Previous two-dimensional (2D) simulations claiming perturbation suppression by magnetic tension are shown to be misleading, as they do not include the most unstable dimension. For perturbation modes along the applied field direction, the magnetic field simultaneously reduces ablative stabilization and adds magnetic tension stabilization; the stabilizing term is found to dominate for applied fields > 5 T, with both effects increasing in importance at short wavelengths. Additionally, for modes perpendicular to the applied field, magnetic tension does not directly stabilize the perturbation but can result in moderately slower growth due to the perturbation appearing to be 2D (albeit in a different orientation to 2D inertial confinement fusion simulations). In cases where thermal ablative stabilization is dominant the applied field increases the peak bubble-spike height. Resistive diffusion is shown to be important for short wavelengths and long timescales, reducing the effectiveness of tension stabilization.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Inferring fuel areal density from secondary neutron yields in laser-driven magnetized liner inertial fusion

A technique to infer the areal density ρR of compressed deuterium (D) in cylindrical implosions from the ratio of secondary D–T (deuterium–tritium) neutrons to primary D–D neutrons is described and evaluated. For ρR to be proportional to the ratio of D–T to D–D yield, the increase in the D–T fusion cross section with collisional slowing of the tritium must be small, requiring where TkeV is the electron temperature in keV. The technique is applied to results from laser-driven magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) targets on OMEGA, where ρR is certainly less than 4 mg/cm 2 . OMEGA MagLIF targets do not achieve a sufficiently high, radially integrated, axial magnetic field BR to confine the tritium, as occurs in Z MagLIF targets, because they are ~10× smaller in radius. The inferred areal densities show that fuel convergence is reduced by preheating, by an applied axial magnetic field, and by increasing the initial fuel density, which are key features of the MagLIF scheme. The results are compared with 1-D and 2-D magnetohydrodynamic simulations for nominal laser and target parameters, which predict areal densities 2× to 3× higher than the measurements.

Davies, J. R.↗