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The Landau-Spitzer Award on the Physics of Plasmas for "outstanding contributions to plasma physics" is jointly sponsored by the Plasma Physics Divisions of the (APS) and the  (EPS).

The Award is given to an individual or group of researchers for outstanding theoretical, experimental or technical contribution(s) in plasma physics and for advancing the collaboration and unity between Europe and the USA by joint research or research that advances knowledge which benefits the two communities in a unique way. The award may be given to a team or collaboration of up to four persons affiliated with either the European or US institutions.

The 2018 recipients are:

Yevgen Kazakov, Laboratory for Plasma Physics of the Royal Military Academy (LPP-ERM/KMS), Brussels, Belgium
Jozef Ongena, Laboratory for Plasma Physics of the Royal Military Academy (LPP-ERM/KMS), Brussels, Belgium
John. C. Wright, MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, USA
Stephen J. Wukitch, MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, USA

The winners were selected "for experimental verification, through collaborative experiments, of a novel and highly efficient ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) scenario for plasma heating and generation of energetic ions in magnetic fusion devices."

-- From left to right : Yegven Kazakov, Jef Ongena (with the first wall of JET as background)and Steven Wukitch, John Wright (with the first wall of Alcator C-Mod as background)

For more detail on the winners and their work please see the , the , and .

Titans of Nuclear is a podcast featuring interviews with experts on nuclear energy by self-described engineer, robotics entrepreneur, and climate change thought leader Bret Kugelmass. In one of the most recent podcasts, Kugelmass interviews ���ߺ��� Director-General Bernard Bigot on his experience in the nuclear field in France, the fundamentals of fusion energy, and the status of the ���ߺ��� Project and its potential importance to the future of energy ...

Click to listen to the 43-minute podcast.

The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is partnering with a group of leading universities to advance understanding of one of the hottest topics in fusion research: turbulence in tokamak plasmas.

The £5 million-plus research program, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (), will be led by a consortium of universities with a strong fusion focus—York, Oxford, Strathclyde and Warwick—and will work in partnership with Culham.

A tokamak operates by using a strong magnetic field to hold the hot fusion fuel—which is in the plasma state—away from the reactor walls. In practice the plasma in tokamak experiments is highly turbulent, and this turbulence increases the loss of heat and particles, degrading the fusion performance. If the turbulence can be reduced, this could open the way to more compact or higher fusion power reactors.

As part of the new initiative, scientists will study how well the magnetic field can confine the plasma in CCFE's new spherical tokamak. They will also seek to shed further light on the properties of an insulating region that exists at the edge of most tokamak plasmas, including , called the pedestal region. This narrow region suppresses the loss of heat and fuel from the plasma, helping to raise the core pressure closer to fusion conditions. The more insulating the pedestal, the higher the central plasma pressure.

Read the full article on the CCFE website .

--The MAST Upgrade control room (SMD Photography)

At the core of ���ߺ���'s neutral beam heating system is a novel high-frequency ion source that has been under development for years at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, Germany. In recent results that are significant for ���ߺ���, IPP's ELISE test rig has achieved the ion current required by ���ߺ��� in hydrogen for 1,000 seconds.

Neutral beam injection relies on high-speed, high energy atoms that penetrate deep into the plasma and transfer their energy to plasma particles by means of collision. The large plasma volume at ���ߺ��� will impose new requirements on this proven method of injection: the particles will have to move three to four times faster than in previous systems in order to penetrate far enough into the plasma, and at these higher rates the positively-charged ions become difficult to neutralize.

At ���ߺ���, for the first time, a negatively-charged ion source has been selected, based on the development of several generations of prototype negative ion sources at IPP.

Since 2009 IPP's ELISE test rig—half the size of what is projected for ���ߺ���—has been a valuable source of experimental data as it has advanced step by step to new orders of magnitude. In the most recent report, ELISE was able to produce a stable, homogenous negative ion beam for 1,000 seconds at ���ߺ��� current strength.

In addition to further work on ELISE, IPP will be collaborating with teams at ���ߺ���'s Neutral Beam Test Facility, where the full-scale ���ߺ���-scale negative ion source SPIDER was commissioned earlier this year.

Read the full report on the of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

Fusion in Europe's second edition this year is filled to the brim with interesting articles. Take the report about the latest experiment at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER). Their linear plasma generator Magnum-PSI has set a new record for the longest exposure of any material to the harsh plasma conditions in a fusion device.

A high vacuum is crucial for the fusion reaction to take place —Fusion in Europe spoke to German supplier Lybold about how they deliver custom-made vacuum solutions to Europe's fusion devices, including ���ߺ���.

"Now is the best time to be at JET," says Eva Belonohy who contributes to preparations for the second deuterium-tritium campaign at JET in over 20 years, planned for 2019 and 2020. She organized a recent workshop for fusion scientists, to share JET's latest features such as its enhanced heating powers and diagnostics or its ���ߺ���-like wall made of beryllium and tungsten.

The latest edition of Fusion in Europe also includes a report from the recent inauguration of SPIDER, the largest ion beam source in the word, in Padova, Italy; introduces award-winning young fusion expert Wei Zhang; and shows an example of how the enthusiasm for fusion can be passed on from one generation to the next within one family.

To read the current edition of Fusion in Europe click .

Summit, the world's fastest supercomputer recently launched at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the US, will be instrumental in accelerating fusion research.

The new supercomputer takes computing powers to new heights. Summit can perform 200 petaflops per second: that is 200 quadrillion calculations, eight times more than the previous record-holder at ORNL, Titan. The massive machine—weighing more than a commercial aircraft—is also the world's largest computer equipped with artificial intelligence ... a machine whose software will write new software.

Harnessing Summit's capabilities in machine learning and simulation as well as in artificial intelligence and deep learning will allow researchers to accelerate scientific discovery in many fields, including fusion. 

For more information on Summit read the ORNL news release and the NVIDIA blog post .

What do Anna, Margaret, Aneeqa, Natalia, Sarah, Kat and Karina have in common?

All these women are engineers who are contributing to ���ߺ��� by working on exciting issues such as building the ion cyclotron antenna, designing and manufacturing the divertor, reducing the risk of beryllium exposure to future workers, or modelling material migration.

For the first time this year, the ���ߺ��� community joined in to mark the International Women in Engineering Day on 23 June. You can find out more about ���ߺ���'s women engineers in the feed of the ���ߺ��� Women's Network.

The day was launched as a national day by the Women's Engineering Society in the United Kingdom in 2014 to celebrate its 95th anniversary. Due to a high level of  response, interest and enthusiasm, the event turned international in 2017 and received UNESCO patronage in 2016 and again in 2018.

The International Women in Engineering Day is now an international awareness campaign to raise the profile of women in engineering and related sciences. By celebrating the achievements of women in this field, the annual event seeks to inspire young women to consider a career in engineering.

Find out more .

--Anneqa Khan is a mechanical engineer in ���ߺ���'s Science Division, working on modelling material migration and fuel retention.

India plans to reboot its steady state superconducting tokamak, SST-1, on time to be showcased at the upcoming IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, reports the media platform The Better India.

Commissioned at the Institute for Plasma Research in 2013, the SST-1 experiment has produced plasma discharges up to ~ 500 ms. Experiments were halted after some small damage was detected in the tokamak's toroidal magnet system in December 2017.

Organized from 22 to 27 October 2018 by the Government of India in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, the 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference will be one of the year's highlights for the world fusion community, providing a platform for discussions around key physics and technology issues in fusion research.

Read about SST-1 on the of "The Better India."

Find more about the 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (or pre-register online) .

In terms of local recruitment needs, the ���ߺ��� Project is at an exceptional junction. At the same time as European Domestic Agency civil works contractors remain active on site, the ���ߺ��� is beginning to issue contracts related to the assembly and installation of components and systems inside of the completed buildings and technical areas.

All of these main contractors have employment offers to fill in a variety of areas. At a recruitment fair held on 14 June more than 500 jobs were on offer, as companies advertised for foremen, engineers, security specialists, welders, boilermakers, pipe-fitters, mechanics, shift supervisors, draftsmen and women, maintenance technicians and more.

If you live locally, you can see the full list of recruitment offers .

The recruitment fair—advertising different types of French employment contracts—is organized annually by the Saint-Paul-lez-Durance employment association with the support of seven municipalities. For assignments at the ���ߺ���, as directly employed staff, please see the ���ߺ��� website.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a from around the world to submit innovative ways to visualize, analyze and explore simulations of different materials that can be used to build fusion reactors.

Experts and self-taught enthusiasts are invited to analyze simulations of the damage that can be caused to the reactor wall by the energetic neutrons released by the fusion reaction. The contest leaves the nature of the software solutions open to enable novel approaches, but one or more of the following can be considered:

• Novel software for visualizing the material damage represented by the simulation data files in a way that aids its qualitative and quantitative assessment;
• New software tools to rapidly and reliably identify, classify and quantify new patterns and structures of particular kinds in the data sets;
• Efficient algorithms to depict and summarize the statistical distribution of atom displacements and to analyze the effect of impact energy on this distribution.

Deadline for submission is 14 July 2018. The winner will be awarded with €5,000 and invited to the IAEA Headquarters in Vienna to present his or her ideas.

See the  as well as  about the challenge on the IAEA website.

In the latest episode of the science and engineering podcast series Omega Tau, producer Markus Völter speaks with Pierre Bauer, a superconductor engineer at ���ߺ���, about superconductivity and its uses.

The listener is first taken back in time to hear about the discovery of superconductivity in 1911, when scientists were trying to liquefy helium in their quest to understand the behavior of metals at very low temperatures. Today, superconductivity is associated with the high-performance magnets used in nuclear fusion reactors, in particle colliders, for magnetic levitation in modern train systems, and also for medical magnetic resonance imaging.

Superconductivity was first observed in mercury; since then, research has resulted in the identification of better materials for low-temperature conductors such as niobium, which is used in ���ߺ���'s niobium-titanium and niobium-tin superconductors.

Völter and Bauer touch on many more issues related to superconductivity in this episode that lasts almost three hours. It is not the first time that ���ߺ��� has featured prominently in the podcast series. In October 2014, Omega Tau spoke with ���ߺ���'s Richard Pitts on the physics and the engineering challenges of the project.

Listen to the podcast with Pierre Bauer .

Listen to the podcast with Richard Pitts .

One of the most flexible and highly instrumented fusion research reactors in the world is undergoing major enhancements that will pave the way to future fusion power plants.

The DIII-D National Fusion Facility is the largest magnetic fusion experiment in the United States. In May, work began on a series of machine enhancements that will make it possible to commence new studies of the physics of future fusion reactors. That will help scientists understand how to achieve high fusion power in the ���ߺ��� and how to sustain such regimes indefinitely in the fusion power plants that will follow ���ߺ���.

The planned year-long activity will enhance DIII-D systems by adding increased and redirected particle beams and radio frequency systems to drive current and sustain the plasma in a so-called "steady state." The improvements will also expand capabilities with the installation of new microwave systems to explore burning-plasma-like conditions with high electron temperatures. This will allow researchers to explore how to achieve higher pressure and temperatures while increasing control of the plasma, conditions critical to sustained fusion operation.

See the recent press release on the General Atomics

Scientists at Oxford University, in collaboration with the University of California Santa Barbara, are studying the impact of radiation on the properties of materials. Through their research, they hope to contribute to developing better, more resilient materials for nuclear fusion.

See this by Oxford Sparks to get an insight into how it is done.

Are you a university graduate in the field of nuclear engineering, physics, administration or communication? Do you want to put your academic experience into practice at ���ߺ���, the most ambitious international energy project? Then this traineeship may be for you. The European Domestic Agency for ���ߺ��� is looking for physicists, engineers, lawyers, communicators and experts in human resources, finance and procurement who are interested in hands-on experience in an exciting international and multicultural environment.

The traineeship is paid and will last from between four to nine months starting in October 2018 at any of the three locations: Barcelona, Spain; ���ߺ��� site (France); or Garching, Germany. The deadline for applications is 25 June 2018.

For more information and a complete list of opportunities click .

Are you a writer or an artist interested in fusion? Then the latest call of EUROfusion, the European consortium of national fusion research institutes, may be something for you. For the third time, EUROfusion invites creative minds to be inspired by all things fusion. Choose any of the eight provided topics and let your creativity on the loose. Winners will have their work published in the autumn edition of the magazine Fusion in Europe.

The eight topics include fusion as a must-have in the future energy mix; fusion as a benefit for you, us and society; fusion as a melting pot for different scientific fields; fusion as a driver of innovation, and a few others questions.

Consult to see all topics and more information on how to participate in this call. The deadline for the submission of proposals is 25 June.

"Clean Energy for all Europeans" is the theme of this year's Sustainable Energy Week. Over 3,000 politicians, stakeholders, civil society representatives and the media will gather in Brussels from 4-8 June to share ideas and look for solutions to address Europe's future energy needs. The ���ߺ��� Project, which aims at complementing, globally, renewable energy sources with clean, safe and abundant fusion energy, is the focus of an afternoon session on 7 June.

Titled "���ߺ��� and fusion: towards a new source of energy on Earth," the event is specifically geared towards the interested non-specialist public. Representatives of the European Commission, ���ߺ���, EUROfusion and Fusion for Energy will introduce ���ߺ��� as one of the most important global energy projects, its vital role in securing mankind's future energy supply and the current status of its construction.

A wide range of events, meetings and activities provide many occasions to get updates on matters related to sustainable energy including e-mobility, energy transition in urban spaces, innovative technology and energy efficiency for industry. At the networking village visitors can enjoy an energy fair, energy talks on topics related to the clean energy transition and an energy lab where ten projects will pitch in front of a panel of experts.

For more information on the Sustainable Energy Week, and to register, please visit the .

The first plasma pulse for almost 18 months took place inside of the JET tokamak in early May.

The machine—the largest and most powerful tokamak in operation today—has been undergoing a revamp to act as a testbed for ���ߺ��� technologies and plasma operating scenarios. JET is now equipped with an ���ߺ���-like beryllium and tungsten wall to study material-plasma interactions, additional heating power, and the ability to handle tritium. Experiments with tritium at JET—the first since the 1990s—will act as an important "dress rehearsal" in preparation for fusion operation at ���ߺ���.

Although not a full fusion plasma, achieving the 1.2 mega amp pulse is a key part of completing the JET restart and getting ready for further commissioning of the machine. The first experiments are expected to take place this year.

Read the full article on the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy's .

Steven Cowley, a theoretical physicist and international authority on fusion energy, has been named director of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), effective July 1.

Cowley has served as president of Corpus Christi College and professor of physics at the University of Oxford since 2016. From 2008 through 2016, he was chief executive officer of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and head of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, which includes the Joint European Torus (JET) and Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) fusion facilities.

During his tenure at Culham, Cowley expanded and strengthened relations with other fusion programs in Europe and around the world, and served in key advisory roles for the U.K., U.S. and European governments.

As director of PPPL, Cowley will be responsible for managing all aspects of the laboratory, including its performance in science, engineering, operations, project management and strategic planning. He will lead PPPL's scientific and technical programs in fusion energy science and technology, as well as broader investigations in plasma science, and provide leadership to the U.S. and world fusion energy efforts.

 Read the original article on the PPPL .

San Diego-based General Atomics (GA) has a new app to help physicists work out the characteristics of plasmas on the fly. Called Plasmatica, it takes up to seven basic input parameters—ranging from magnetic field to electron temperature to ion mass factor—and outputs many fundamental properties of the plasma. The parameters are helpful to researchers because they describe intrinsic plasma behaviors, e.g., how often particles will collide with each other.

"Before this, most of us just would have written a little program on our computers to do these calculations, and in fact a bunch of us have them," said David Pace, the GA physicist who spurred the development of Plasmatica. "We thought it would be nice to give back to the research community by creating a standardized app that everyone can use when they're not at their computers. It's been exciting to get some initial feedback that is guiding us to a new round of improvements."

GA operates the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, the largest magnetic fusion facility operating in the U.S. and a world-renowned research center for plasma physics. Research time on DIII-D is extremely valuable—the facility can accept only about one out of every five experimental proposals—so having those calculations accessible on a mobile device can save precious minutes when researchers are trying to line up the next experiment.

The app, which incorporates two formularies commonly used by plasma physicists, has been tested by researchers and is getting solid reviews. Plasmatica is available for free in both the and app stores.

The first Fusion in Europe of 2018 has been released. This quarterly magazine, published by the European consortium , keeps readers abreast of the faces, facilities and feats of the very dynamic fusion research community in Europe.

The latest issue offers articles on the experimental campaign underway at WEST (France), the 3D printing of small tungsten components, and plans for a neutron source oriented to DEMO (the machine after ���ߺ���).

You can read or download Fusion in Europe .