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Fusion world

Milestone for China's HL-3 device

11 Sep 2023
The team operating the HL-3 tokamak reports operating for the first time in high-confinement mode (H-mode) with a plasma current of one million amperes.
HL-3_tokamak_2023.jpg
High-confinement mode, or H-mode, is an advanced mode of operation in magnetic confinement fusion devices that can improve the efficiency of a fusion reactor. China's HL-3 device recently achieved H-mode operation with a current of one million amperes.
HL-3 is a research device located at the Center of Fusion Science/Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP) in Chengdu, China. Its construction was a decade-long project that cumulated with the completion of first plasma in December 2020. (The device used to be referred to as HL-2M.) Two years later, in October, the device achieved operation with a plasma current of one million amperes. Last month, the device achieved repeatable 1 MA/H-mode operation.

"This [latest milestone] once again broke the operation record of China's nuclear fusion devices with magnetic confinement, overcoming many technical challenges. This milestone holds great importance in China's nuclear fusion energy development, signifying a crucial step forward in the research of high-performance nuclear fusion plasma operation," said the press release released by the China National Nuclear Corporation, CNNC.

The success of operation in H-mode is the result of upgrades to the device's heating, operation and control, diagnostic, and power supply system. The next goal for HL-3 is to increase the fusion triple product—a plasma's particle density, energy confinement time, and ion temperature—to attain the kind of high plasma performance that is needed to study frontier fusion plasma physics.

Read more about the milestone on the CNNC and CGTN websites. 

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