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Korea’s Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) superconducting magnetic fusion reactor claimed a new record last month: it contained hydrogen plasma at 100 megakelvins for 20 seconds. For reference, the core temperature of Earth’s Sun is just 15 megakelvins, although to be fair, it has been running for well over 20 seconds.
South Korea is a member of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) team, a global project investigating the science and engineering of nuclear fusion. One of his contributions to the effort is the KSTAR facility, located in the city of Daejeon in the center of the country (about 150 km south of Seoul).
It is a tokamak-style fusion research reactor that uses superconducting magnets to generate a magnetic flux density of 3.5 tesla and plasma currents of 2 megaamperes. These conditions are used to confine and maintain the plasma in what is called high-confinement mode, the conditions currently favored for fusion reactor designs. Since it went online in 2008, it has been creating ever longer and hotter plasma “pulses”.
Despite all the impressive numbers, the toroidal reactor itself isn’t that big. Its largest diameter is only 3.6 meters with a diameter less than 1 meter. What makes the facility so great is the entire support team. Watch the video below – We really like the techniques they use in this virtual tour to highlight the key components of the installation.
