At 0:26 a.m. on January 28, the all superconducting tokamak nuclear fusion experimental device east of Hefei Institute of material sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences successfully realized an ultra-high temperature long pulse plasma discharge with an electron temperature of more than 50 million degrees and a duration of 102 seconds, which is the longest plasma discharge with an electron temperature of 50 million degrees on the international Tokamak experimental device.
Ultra high temperature long pulse plasma discharge is the basic operation mode of fusion reactor in the future. At present, most of the magnetic confinement fusion experimental devices in the world are conventional non superconducting tokamaks, and the plasma duration of divertor configuration is basically less than 20 seconds. Only European Union and Japanese scientists have obtained high parameter divertor plasma with a maximum of 60 seconds. The established scientific goal of East is to achieve 100 million degrees and 1000 seconds of plasma operation, but there are still many scientific and technological challenges to achieve this scientific goal. Since this round of experiments, the researchers of East team have worked day and night to solve a series of key scientific and engineering technical problems: accurate control of magnetic configuration of long pulse plasma, safe operation technology of all superconducting magnet, steady-state and effective plasma heating and current driving, etc. Through integrated innovation and comprehensive experimental research, using low clutter and electron cyclotron wave collaborative heating and current drive, East successfully realized a high-temperature plasma discharge with 102 seconds, plasma current of 0.4 Ma and core electron temperature of more than 50 million degrees under the common heating of neutral beam.
Experts pointed out that the above achievements are of milestone significance in the research of fusion reactor in the future, marking that China continues to be in the forefront of the world in the research of steady-state magnetic confinement fusion. At present, East has become an important experimental platform for steady-state magnetic confinement fusion research in the world. Its research results will provide scientific and engineering experimental support for the realization of steady-state high confinement discharge of ITER in the future, and will continue to lay an important scientific foundation for the preliminary research of China's next generation fusion device - China's fusion engineering experimental reactor.