Load it up with deuterium
The EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants offer early-career researchers the opportunity to develop innovative ideas and techniques to advance EUROfusion’s Roadmap to Fusion Energy. Materials physicist Tomi Vuoriheimo (University of Helsinki, Finland) will use his 2025 ERG grant to study how atoms of fusion fuel infiltrate into the tungsten metal inside future fusion machines.
Boronise your Tokamak
By layering the plasma-facing components of a fusion experiment with a thin layer of boron, fusion researchers boost the performance of their experiments and reduce the amount of impurities coming from the walls.
Let the plasma calm itself
The EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grants offer early-career researchers the opportunity to develop innovative ideas and techniques to advance EUROfusion’s Roadmap to Fusion Energy. Numerical modeler Haowei Zhang (IPP, Germany) will use his 2025 ERG grant to study a calming process of self-organisation in fusion plasmas.
Advanced Gyrotron Technologies
As the demand for fusion energy grows, the development of gyrotron technology must keep pace with the increasing power and efficiency requirements. This article explores recent advancements in gyrotron technology, focusing on innovations that address the challenges of heat management, beam quality, and efficiency.
An extra set of eyes on runaway electrons
Dutch fusion researcher Tijs Wijkamp received a EUROfusion Bernard Bigot Researcher Grant (ERG) to study runaway electrons, which can damage the inside of a fusion reactor if they are not properly dealt with. EUROfusion interviewed him on how the ERG stimulates connecting with other experts.
Gyrotrons: The Backbone of Fusion Energy
Gyrotrons are fundamental to the operation of fusion energy devices. These high-power microwave systems generate millimetre-wave electromagnetic radiation, which is essential for heating and driving current in plasmas within Magnetic Confinement Fusion devices such as tokamaks and stellarators.
“New opportunities to shape the fusion field”
The EUROfusion Engineering Grants (EEG) offer outstanding early-career researchers the opportunity to work on key technological challenges for the European fusion programme. EUROfusion talks to UKAEA’s Maria Lorena Richiusa about how her 2019 EEG helped shape her fusion career.
Tech transfer: harnessing turbulence
Fusion in space? Lifting a complete power plant the size of ITER into orbit may be out of the realm of possibilities, but fusion still has contributions to make. Scientists from the Spanish EUROfusion member CIEMAT helped propulsion experts at the Plasma & Space Propulsion Team of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) to understand the turbulence that limits the performance of their plasma thrusters.
Fusion fuel mix could stabilise burning plasma
Future fusion power plants may experience fewer energy losses in their burning plasma due to instabilities than previously anticipated, according to a study by EUROfusion researchers published in Nature Communications. Their findings, based on record-breaking experiments conducted in 2021 in the Joint European Torus machine (JET), could pave the way for improved fusion reactor designs, potentially enabling smaller and more efficient reactors.