Fusion by Magnetic Confinement
The image above is an artistic rendering of a tokamak, a donut-shaped magnetic vacuum chamber in which wispy vapors of fusion fuel are electrified and heated to hundreds of millions of degrees - hotter than the center of the sun! The magnetic fields are configured to trap the superheated fusion fuel in the center of the loop, so that it can't touch the walls and cool off. At the high temperatures and pressures in the center, megawatts of fusion power can be produced. While not currently economically viable, magnetic confinement fusion shows promise as a future energy source.
To learn more about fusion reactions and the magnetic confinement process, select the CPEP Online Fusion Course here or from the FusEdWeb menu.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory