The SPARC Toroidal Field Model Coil and the high-field path to fusion energy

Zach Hartwig

The Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor and Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering

Abstract: Recent advances in high field superconducting magnet technology have opened a pathway to achieving fusion energy on accelerated timescales that could enable fusion to play a role in combating global climate change. This talk will give an overview of the “high field path” to fusion energy and an in-depth look at a major achievement that forms a key technological cornerstone of this approach: the test of a first-of-kind, representative scale, 20 tesla superconducting magnet completed in the fall of 2021 by MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

Bio: Zachary (Zach) Hartwig is the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor at MIT and an Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) with a co-appointment at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). He has worked primarily in the areas of large-scale applied superconductivity, magnetic fusion device design, and plasma-material interactions. He is a co-founder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a private company commercializing fusion energy. He received his PhD from MIT NSE in 2013 and received his B.A. in Physics from Boston University in 2005.

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Webinar ID: 989 1256 7590