The Alcator C-Mod Tokamak
For 40 years MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) has been exploring nuclear fusion as a source of energy through a series of tokamaks. The C-Mod is the third in a series of Alcator tokamaks developed at MIT since the 1960s. Characterized by a donut-shaped vacuum chamber wrapped in high-field magnets, the Alcator approach makes it possible to produce very dense and well-confined plasmas in a relatively compact device. (The name “Alcator” comes from alto campo torus = high field torus.) Its metal (molybdenum) walls can accommodate high power densities. Alcator C-Mod has made significant contributions to the world fusion program in the areas of plasma heating, stability, and confinement of high field tokamaks.Alcator C-Mod is the only tokamak in the world operating at and above the ITER design magnetic field and plasma densities, and it produces the highest pressure tokamak plasma in the world, approaching pressures expected in ITER.
Fusing atoms make a very loud and very eerie sound.
Image source & credit: Dave Mosher/Tech Insider
