Fusion offers the potential for nearly limitless carbon-free energy by replicating the processes that power our Sun. It could help meet the increasing global demand for sustainable energy sources while reducing energy costs. The U.S. government has prioritized fusion research, and fusion was the subject of the Developing a Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy summit held at the White House in March 2022 and ongoing plans.
However, building a fusion power plant capable of generating economically attractive power at scale poses significant scientific and technical challenges. For example, fusion occurs when two atomic nuclei—deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen—combine to form a new nucleus, releasing vast amounts of energy. However, both these nuclei are positively charged, so they repel each other. Overcoming these forces to fuse them requires extreme temperatures and pressures.
Researchers across Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics (ATAP) Division are working at the forefront of fusion research to advance the two main approaches to achieving fusion: magnetic confinement fusion, in which powerful magnetic fields confine hot matter (plasma), and inertial confinement fusion, in which matter is compressed to extreme densities by intense lasers or particle beams. They are also helping to develop the workforce that will drive fusion science.
For instance, ATAP’s Superconducting Magnet Program (SMP) spearheads the development of powerful superconducting magnets required for magnetic confinement fusion. Coordinated through the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Office of Science Fusion Energy Sciences program and utilizing public-private partnerships, SMP researchers are fabricating high-temperature superconductor cables made from rare-earth barium copper oxide tape. These cables can carry the high currents necessary to produce magnets capable of delivering the extremely high magnetic fields needed for magnetic confinement fusion.
Testing HTS superconducting components such as joints and terminations provides critical feedback for technology development for fusion. (Credit: Thor Swift/Berkeley Lab)
In another example of a private-public partnership supported by the DOE’s Office of Science Fusion Energy Sciences Program, researchers from the Fusion Science and Ion Beam Technology (FS&IBT) Program at ATAP partner with companies to develop particle beams for fusion plasma heating. FS&IBT also supports the development of a future workforce to drive the science and technology advances needed to realize fusion through the Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) program, funded by the DOE. It recently hosted the first cohort of students from the University of Hawaii under the program.
The Advanced Modeling Program (AMP) ATAP uses the award-winning WarpX simulation code to model the complex interaction between the intense, ultrafast laser pulses and plasma used in inertial confinement fusion. Created under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project, WarpX is part of the Beam, Plasma, & Accelerator Simulation Toolkit, an open-source suite of several interoperable accelerator simulation codes. WarpX is also used by a growing number of private fusion ventures to simulate various fusion concepts, contributing to the code’s development and testing.
WarpX simulation of a field-reverse configuration fusion device. (Credit: TAE Technologies)
AMP researchers also collaborate with colleagues from the Lab’s Applied Mathematics & Computational Research Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of Rochester, and Kitware, Inc., an IT company headquartered in New York. Together, they are developing and applying simulation tools to speed up the progress toward designing a pilot inertial confinement fusion power plant. The work is part of a four-year project titled “Kinetic IFE Simulations at Multiscale with Exascale Technologies,” supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Scientific Discovery Through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program. It aims to create and apply novel algorithms to advance our understanding of the complex kinetic effects involved in laser-driven inertial fusion energy.
AMP also partnered with FS&IBT to co-host students from the University of Hawaii as part of the RENEW program.
The BELLA Center at ATAP is also conducting groundbreaking research on laser-plasma acceleration to advance inertial confinement fusion. For example, researchers at the center use the BELLA Petawatt laser to produce ultra-fast, high-intensity laser pulses that interact with plasma to create extremely high electric field gradients. With many orders of magnitude higher gradients than traditional radio-frequency accelerators, the facilities at BELLA can accelerate ions up to tens of MeV and electrons up to 10 GeV and drive intense photon sources that have keV to MeV energies.
The bursts of radiation from these plasmas are incredibly short, lasting only a trillionth of a second, and extremely bright, which makes them perfect for studying the ultrafast and complex processes in inertial fusion plasmas. The facility also generates proton beams for potential application in fast ignition studies in inertial confinement fusion. BELLA is also helping to foster future fusion researchers and recently hosted RENEW program students from the University of California, Merced. In addition to these efforts, BELLA Research Scientist Lieselotte Obst-Hubel presented a co-authored white paper, “LaserNetUS for Developing a Diverse Fusion Workforce,” at the National Science Foundation for the Clean Energy Fusion Conference, held at Hampton University in Virginia, on June 14, 2024.
The research conducted at ATAP contributes to our understanding of the fundamental processes at play and supports national and international efforts to harness the power of fusion.
To learn more …
Superconducting Magnets for Fusion Energy
Ultra-High-Intensity Laser-Plasma Interactions
Berkeley Lab Leads SciDAC Project
For more information on ATAP News articles, contact caw@lbl.gov.
