Plasma Physics and Engineering for Fusion Research and Material Processing

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Plasma is an ionized gas with free electrons, ions, and neutral particles. Fusion has been considered an ultimate energy solution which is inexhaustible and also friendly to environment. Tokamak is a device to confine plasma using magnetic field. Pursues to build commercial fusion reactor are hindered by anomalous transport of heat and particles in the reactor. Instabilities and turbulences are the main candidates for causing anomalous transport, but the exact mechanism is still largely unknown. In addition, many technical and engineering problems have to be solved before commercial fusion reactors can be built. The proposed research on the Saskatchewan Torus-Modified (STOR-M) tokamak addresses several key physics and technical issues for future fusion reactor: effective fueling using compact torus injection to reduce tritium fuel recycling requirement; resonant magnetic perturbation to suppress instabilities which may degrade plasma confinement and even cause termination of reactor operations. Since termination of the Canadian national fusion program and the closure of the TdeV tokamak in 1997, the STOR-M tokamak has been the only magnetic fusion research facility in Canada. The ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is the largest scientific project participated in by seven parties (EU, USA, Japan, Russia, China, Korea, and India. Unfortunately, Canada is now the only G8 country outside the ITER program. It is important for Canada to maintain a small, yet active fusion research program on STOR-M which is vibrant and visible to the international fusion community. In addition, research on plasma technologies will be carried out for industrial and medical applications using existing plasma reactors in the Laboratory and a new dense plasma focus device to be built. Research on the plasma aided material processing is also related to some extent to fusion plasmas. At the edge of a tokamak, plasma density and temperature are relatively low. Techniques used for diagnosing edge plasma parameters in tokamaks can also be used for processing plasmas.