Department of Plasma Physics and Material Engineering - Overview

Full text: In 2010 the activities of the Department continued previous studies in the following fields of plasma physics, controlled nuclear fusion and plasma engineering: · · Development of selected methods for high-temperature plasma diagnostics; · Studies of physical phenomena in pulsed discharges in the Plasma-Focus (PF), RPI-IBIS, and Impulse Plasma Deposition (IPD) facilities; · Research on plasma technologies; · Selected problems of plasma theory and computational modeling. In the frame of the EURATOM program, efforts were devoted to the development of diagnostics methods for tokamak-type facilities. In 2010 Cherenkov detectors were applied in the ISTTOK and TORE SUPRA facilities to detect energetic electrons (of energy > 60 keV), to determine their spatial and temporal behavior and to estimate their energy spectra. Attention was also paid to measurements of hard X rays emitted from ISTTOK and to their correlations with run-away electrons. The new data on fast electrons, collected within the TORE-SUPRA machine in 2010, confirmed the appearance of intense electron streams (possible ripple-born and runaway ones), which have a similar character to the electron signals recorded by means of other diagnostic techniques. Other fusion-oriented efforts are connected with the application of solid-state nuclear track detectors to detect fast alpha particles in tokamak experiments. As for experimental studies, particular attention was paid to the investigation of fast ion- and electron-beams emitted from high-current plasma discharges in PF and RPI facilities. Ion streams from discharges were studied by means of nuclear track detector, corpuscular diagnostic techniques, and particularly of a miniature Thompson-type mass-spectrometer. A field of research activity was related to plasma technology. Efforts were undertaken to improve the ultra-high vacuum (UHV) deposition of thin superconducting layers, e.g. pure niobium film on the surface of copper resonant cavities of accelerators. In 2010 several investigations of the specific structure and properties of layers synthesized by different plasma surface engineering methods like Impulse Plasma Deposition and Pulse Magnetron Sputtering were also performed. Other studies were connected with silicon implanted with manganese - material predicted for spintronic devices. Various physical phenomena were analysed theoretically, e.g. plasma dynamics in the coaxial Impulse Plasma Deposition accelerator. (author)