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

SPEAKER: Zach Hartwig The Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor and Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering DATE/TIME: FRI, 10/07/2022 – 3:00PM TO 4:00PM LOCATION: Webinar Fall 2022 Colloquium Series 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.

About the Speaker:

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.