Dr. Min-Gu Yoo Receives the Young Scientist in Plasma Physics Award from the Korean Physical Society


▲ Dr. Min-Gu Yoo of the Department of Nuclear Engineering (Photo Provided by PPPL, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory)

 
SNU College of Engineering announced on 21^st that Dr. Min-Gu Yoo from the Fusion and Plasma Application Laboratory (supervised by Professor Yong-Su Na) of the Department of Nuclear Engineering have recently received the “Young Scientist in Plasma Physics” award from the Korean Physical Society.
 
The “Young Scientist in Plasma Physics” award is given to an individual that has contributed greatly to the plasma physics field of Korea. The award ceremony took place during the 2019 Korean Physical Society Spring Meeting held last April 24^th to 26^th.  
 
Dr. Yoo, under the supervision of Professor Yong-Su Na of the Department of Nuclear Engineering, conducted his doctoral research to reveal the fundamental principles behind the start-up of the tokamak reactor. His work led to him receiving this award. Yoo’s research findings were published on the prestigious Nature Communications.
 
Dr. Yoo and Professor Na’s team uncovered contradictions to the conventional theory on start-up of nuclear fusion and attempted an alternative approach. Using their independently-developed particle-based 3D simulation and confirming the simulation with the KSTAR tokamak reactor, the team showed that the plasma created a strong electric field and flow turbulence at start-up.
 
Following up, the research team suggested a method to easily interpret the complicated electric field structure of nuclear fusion reactor based on their new discharge theory. It is anticipated that this method would greatly help the scenario design and optimization of the start-up of future nuclear fusion reactors like ITER.
 
Professor Yoo stated, “It is a great honor for me to receive the Young Scientist in Plasma Physics award. I will further strive to become a scientist that leads the Korean plasma field to the world level.”
 
Professor Yoo received his Ph.D. from SNU in 2018 and proceeded onto the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for his postdoctoral research on physical mechanism of plasma breakdown in nuclear fusion.
 

Comparison between the Results of the Team’s 3D Simulation and the Results Produced by KSTAR
Results at Computer-Simulated t = 36ms: a) Plasma Density, b) Plasma Temperature, c) Balmer-alpha Line.
Reconstructed Images from Computer-Simulated Results: d) Virtual Camera Image, e) Experimentally-Observed Camera Image