Wills Plasma Physics Department annual report, 1989

An overview of the collaborative researches carried out during the 1989 at the Wills Plasma Physics Department is given. The main activities included the study of hydromagnetic surface waves and RF heating using the Tortus tokamak; the development of diagnostic techniques, particularly those based on submillimetre lasers and tunable gyrotrons; gas discharge studies and investigations of apparent cold nuclear fusion in deuterated palladium. The small research tokamak Tortus was upgraded during the year, thus enabling the machine to be routinely and reliably operated at toroidal currents around 40 kA. A list of papers published or presented at various conferences during the year is included in the Appendix