Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Fusion research in the Plasma Physics Laboratory is centered at the STOR-M tokamak, a doughnut shaped toroidal magnetic confinement device designed and built for basic studies of tokamak physics and technology development including Compact Torus injection, magnetic helicity injection for current drive, anomalous transport, and novel tokamak operation scenarios. The experimental program is corroborated by theoretical and computational studies on tokamak stability and anomalous transport with an ultimate objective of developing economically competitive fusion reactors with high beta and steady state operation. (Beta is the plasma pressure normalized by the magnetic pressure.) Tokamak performance can be improved by tailoring radial profiles of plasma current and pressure and CT injection has a potential to achieve it. STOR-M is the only tokamak in Canada and it continues to provide students and PDFs with training opportunities in advanced fusion science which is vital for maintaining and furthering Canadian expertise. In the Laboratory, a new program of plasma assisted material science was created in 2001. Since then, several plasma reactors have been acquired and close net of synergy has been established on campus for collaboration with researchers in other disciplines. The Laboratory is becoming a centre of synthesis of carbon based nano materials. Unique technologies have been developed to synthesize diamond, diamond-like carbon (DLC), CNT (carbon nano tubes), carbon nanonones, and to coat polymers with amorphous doped carbon films at unusually low temperatures. Synthesis of diamond and related materials at low temperatures (e.g., well below the melting temperatures of polymers) will broaden substrates on which carbon based materials can be deposited. Research will be continued to synthesize novel carbon based materials and develop their industrial applications including coating biomedical polymers with doped carbon thin films, field electron emission from carbon nanotubes and nanocones, and diamond coating on steel alloys.