Plasma Physics and Engineering for Fusion Research and other Applications

聚变研究和其他应用的等离子体物理和工程--等离子体是一种电离气体或物质的第四种状态。当固体(如冰)连续受热时，它会变成液体，然后变成气体。当气体中增加更多的热量时，通常属于某些原子的电子将被剥离，变成自由电子。这种负电子、正负离子、分子和中性粒子的混合物被称为等离子体。等离子体存在于自然界中，如太阳的燃烧表面、北极光和闪电，也存在于人造设备中，如荧光灯管和等离子电视屏幕。其他类型的等离子体设备也用于工业应用。例如，所有用于电脑或手机的集成电路芯片都必须使用等离子体来刻蚀精细和深的凹槽。等离子体还可用于工业和生物医学领域的薄膜沉积或离子注入。用于这些目的的等离子体的温度相对较低。在光谱的另一端，热等离子体被用来创造条件来提取聚变能量，这种聚变能量使用大量的、几乎取之不尽的燃料，在聚变反应堆核心中加热到数亿摄氏度。这些又热又密的等离子体燃料主要是通过真空室内的强磁场聚集在一起的。最有希望的装置是托卡马克。有几个问题阻碍了聚变能源反应堆的实现，聚变能源反应堆提供了安全的能源，没有碳气体排放，而且几乎没有限制来自海水的燃料。例如，需要改善约束以达到反应堆的点火条件。燃料必须从外部送到反应堆的核心。在真空室中用作面向等离子体的组件的材料必须承受高热负荷以及聚变等离子体的中子轰击。 萨斯喀彻温省大学运营着STOR-M托卡马克装置、紧凑型环形喷射器和高密度等离子体聚焦(DPF)装置。这些设备只存在于加拿大的萨斯喀彻温大学。拟议的研究将在这两个设备上进行。STOR-M将用于研究等离子体约束，紧凑型环形喷射器将用于研究托卡马克反应堆的创新燃料技术。高密度等离子体聚焦装置将被用作测试设施，以研究聚变反应堆部件的材料。在STOR-M上，将研究等离子体约束、等离子体转速。改进的约束条件将有助于托卡马克达到未来聚变反应堆所需的燃烧条件，并提高反应堆的效率。 萨斯喀彻温省大学从事等离子体研究已有40多年，并将等离子体用于等离子体辅助材料合成已有20多年。拟议的研究将有助于保持加拿大在聚变能源研究方面的专业知识，并培养年轻人才。

Plasma Physics and Engineering for Fusion Research and other Applications -- Plasma is an ionized gas or the fourth state of matter. When a solid (such as ice) is successively heated, it will become liquid then gas. When more heat is added to the gas, the electrons usually belonging to certain atoms will be stripped off and become free electrons. This mixture of negative electrons, positive and negative ions, molecules and neutral particles is called a plasma. Plasma exists in nature, such as the burning surface of the sun, the aurora borealis, and lightning, as well as in man-made devices, such as in fluorescence light tubes and plasma TV screens. Other types of plasma devices are used for industrial applications. For example, all integrated circuit chips used in computers or cellphones must use plasma to etch fine and deep grooves. Plasmas are also used for thin film deposition or ion implantation for industrial and biomedical applications. The temperatures of the plasmas used for those purposes are relatively low. On the other end of the spectrum, hot plasmas are used to create a condition to extract fusion energy which uses abundant, practically inexhaustible fuels heated to hundreds of millions degrees in the fusion reactor core. Those hot and dense plasma fuels are primarily held together with strong magnetic fields within a vacuum chamber. The most promising device is called Tokamak. There are several issues that have hindered realization of the fusion energy reactors that offers safe energy source without carbon gas emission and with practically unlimited fuel from the sea water. For example, the confinement needs to be improved to achieve ignition condition for the reactor. The fuel has to be sent to the core of the reactor from outside. The materials used as the plasma facing components in the vacuum chamber must withstand high heat load as well as neutron bombardment from the fusion plasma. University of Saskatchewan operates the STOR-M tokamak, a compact torus injector, and a dense plasma focus (DPF) device. Those devices exist only at the University of Saskatchewan within Canada. The proposed research will be carried out on the two devices. STOR-M will be used to study plasma confinement, the Compact torus Injector will be used study the innovative fuel technology for tokamak reactors. The dense plasma focus device will be used as a testing facility to study the materials intended for fusion reactor components. On STOR-M, plasma confinement, plasma rotation speed will be studied. Improved confinement will help the tokamak to achieve the burning condition required for future fusion reactor and to improve the efficiency of the reactor. The University of Saskatchewan has conducted plasma research for over 40 years and used plasma for plasma aided material syntheses for over 20 years. The proposed research will help maintain Canadian expertise in fusion energy research and to train young talents.