In our latest video from the JET DTE3 campaign series, Dr. Giroud, from the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), unveils her team’s pioneering work on impurity gas seeding – a critical technique for future fusion devices.
Highlights from the Interview:
- Innovative Approach: Dr. Giroud discusses her unique approach to managing plasma within the Joint European Torus (JET). By injecting impurities, such as neon, into the plasma, her team is able to significantly reduce the heat impacting the tokamak walls, ensuring both the efficiency and longevity of the fusion device.
- The Importance of a Cold Wall: The experiment focuses on the necessity of maintaining a cold wall in fusion devices, a requirement for future reactors. Dr. Giroud explains that a sufficiently cold wall prevents damage and extends the device’s operational lifespan.
- Neon Impurity Seeding: The choice of neon as an impurity is crucial. Dr. Giroud elaborates on how neon helps to effectively radiate energy away from the plasma, reducing the heat load and potentially enabling more frequent operation of future fusion reactors.
- JET’s Role in Fusion Progress: As the world’s largest fusion device, JET provides an unparalleled platform for these experiments. Dr. Giroud highlights the importance of JET in testing how these techniques adapt from a deuterium environment to a mixed deuterium-tritium environment, and their implications for future fusion devices, particularly ITER.
- Emotional and Scientific Journey: Being part of the last DTE3 campaign at JET, Dr. Giroud shares her excitement and the bittersweet nature of working on these groundbreaking experiments at this pivotal moment in fusion research.
We invite our readers to watch the full interview with Dr. Giroud and delve deeper into the fascinating world of fusion energy research.
