loaction
Professor Yong-Su Na's Team of the SNU Department of Nuclear Engineering Sets a New World Record of Maintaining a 100 Million Degree KSTAR Nuclear Fusion Plasma for 20 Seconds
-
작성자
관리자
-
등록일
2021.01.15
-
조회수
1,247
Professor Yong-Su Na's Team of the SNU Department of Nuclear Engineering Sets a New World Record of Maintaining a 100 Million Degree KSTAR Nuclear Fusion Plasma for 20 Seconds
▲ From left Professor Yong-Su Na of the SNU Department of Nuclear Engineering, Researchers SangJin Park, Young-Ho Lee and Chanyoung Lee
▲ From left Professor Yong-Su Na of the SNU Department of Nuclear Engineering, Researchers SangJin Park, Young-Ho Lee and Chanyoung Lee
Professor Yong-Su Na of the SNU Department of Nuclear Engineering and his research team of SangJin Park, Young-Ho Lee and Chanyoung Lee have set a new world record of maintaining 100 million-degree plasma for 20 seconds at KSTAR.
Plasma is a state of matter in which atomic nuclei and electrons are separated and move freely, and in order to achieve development through such fission energy on Earth, it is crucial to be able to maintain a stable ion temperature of more than 100 million degrees.
KSTAR is a doughnut-shaped fusion device that uses magnetic fields to trap plasma and as it uses superconducting magnets, it showcases superior performance compared to other copper-magnetic devices. Professor Yong-Su Na's team first achieved ultra-high temperature plasma with an estimated ion temperature of more than 100 million degrees at KSTAR in 2018, and succeeded in maintaining it for more than 20 seconds through his joint research with the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy and Columbia University in the U.S. This is an achievement that more than doubly surpasses the large-scale tokamak devices in Japan and Europe that have maintained 100 million-degree ions for less than 10 seconds.
In order to create ultra-high temperature plasma, an internal transport barrier (ITB) must be formed to control turbulence so that plasma temperatures do not cool down. The research team succeeded in creating an ultra-high temperature internal transport barrier by transforming the external magnetic field of plasma differently from the conventional method and reducing plasma density.
▲ Ion Temperature Graph for KSTAR Experiment Devices as well as for the experiment that achieved the maintenance of 100 million degrees for 20 seconds. It can be seen that the ion temperature of more than 100 million degrees is maintained for more than 20 seconds.
"Nuclear fusion energy is the next generation of clean energy that is more than 10 times more efficient than nuclear power generation that uses fission reactions and has no risk of any leakage in radioactive materials," said Yoon Si-woo, director of the Korea Institute of Fusion.
"KSTAR has solved various problems with existing internal transportation barriers and succeeded in ultra-high temperature driving for a long time, taking a step forward in developing nuclear fusion reactor driving technology for the implementation of fusion energy," said SNU Professor Yong-Su Na of Seoul National University.
The research results were nominated for the top 10 science and technology news of the year and will be released to nuclear fusion researchers around the world at the IAEA Fusion Energy Conference in May next year.