Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics Research
Experimental Plasma Physics
In this research area, we use a variety of experimental facilities to explore the confinement and heating of plasmas, primarily in support of the quest for fusion energy. A variety of large experimental programs offer a unique balance between working with a large team of scientists and technicians and direct hands-on student experiences that make our graduates well prepared for careers at the world’s largest fusion research facilities. Individual experimental campaigns seek to develop new methods for plasma startup and heating, new diagnostics for measuring plasma characteristics during operation, and new understanding of how plasma interacts with the solid surfaces at the interface with the device.
Faculty
Centers, consortia and institutes
On-campus fusion experiments
To reach fusion conditions, the high-temperature plasma is confined within a vacuum chamber by strong magnetic fields. Exploring the optimization of various configurations to accomplish this magnetic confinement is a key aspect of fusion energy-related research. The department houses a unique magnetic confinement fusion experiment, the Pegasus-III spherical tokamak under the supervision of Professor Diem. This device is being upgraded to become a center for studies of non-inductive current drive in tokamaks on the national scale, with related work in radio-frequency heating and diagnostics development to support the understanding of this experiment.
In addition, the NEEP department operates the Helically Symmetric eXperiment(HSX). This medium size stellarator uses 3D shaped magnetic field coils to confine plasmas with temperatures greater than 10 Million Kelvin and is the first ever built quasi-symmetric fusion device. HSX has demonstrated excellent confinement properties and pioneered research towards stellarator fusion power plants. The experiment is led by Professor Geiger and current research directions are studies of plasma turbulence, the generation of flows, diagnostic developments and divertor operation.
There are two other major magnetic fusion experiments on the UW-Madison campus. They are the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM) and MST, a reversed-field pinch device, in the Department of Physics. All of these facilities create a strong, collaborative research environment for faculty, staff and students from multiple departments across campus.
To realize sustained confinement, materials have to be developed that withstand the conditions in this harsh environment. The MARIA linear helicon plasma is used to study plasma material interactions and fundamental atomic processes in the plasma surface interaction domain. This experiment is supervised by Professor Schmitz.
Off-campus experimental programs
As fusion science progresses, large-scale facilities are addressing the high-performance regime. NEEP faculty in fusion energy science are participating in several large-scale facilities around the world, among them the ITER tokamak in Cadarache, France, the W7-X stellarator in Greifswald, Germany, well as the two U.S. national user facilities DIII-D and NSTX-U. The research group led by Professor Geiger, Professor Emeritus Fonck, and senior scientist McKee studies ion-heat and impurity transport, as well as turbulent fluctuations based on beam emission spectroscopy (BES). The collaborative research at the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Greifswald, Germany, is additionally coupled to an on-campus stellarator program by means of the HILOADS international laboratory of the German Helmholtz Association. Professor Schmitz‘s group investigates the plasma edge and plasma material interaction in stellarator geometries with a focus on W7-X.
Plasma science
The plasma medium that is intensively studied for fusion application offers a broad range of applications from processing plasmas, to plasma coating and plasma propulsion. One direction that is actively pursued in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics is the development of a plasma source for plasma-based wake field accelerator. Professor Schmitz is a full member of the AWAKE project at CERN and his group operates the Long Wake Field Accelerator Plasma prototype (LWAP-proto) cell.