Photo Stories

A good picture equals a thousand words: we use some striking photos to showcase the highlights of 2019 from the world of fusion research.

International Women’s Day 2019: Think equal, build smart, innovate for change

To mark the 2019 International Women's Day, here are some excerpts from the coversation with the women fusion reseachers.

Physicists are not content with things that just look pretty; they need to be useful as well. For example, a ruby such as the one physicist Mark Kempenaars is holding in this picture might be worth £7000, but it is not just for use as jewellery, it can also produce a very short, high-powered pulse of red laser light.

JET and ITER are experiments which are not designed to produce large scale power output for the grid. Construction will probably commence on the first fusion power plants during the 2030s, hence we can only show a schematic here.

Philippe Mertens from Forschungszentrum Jülich is checking the solid tungsten lamellae on four tile modules of the new divertor. This central part of the divertor on the bottom of the vessel will have to withstand the highest heat loads of any component in JET.

The snowflake is not usually associated with extremely high temperatures – yet this image is from the hottest part of a tokamak, the divertor.