Spitzer's stellarator
Stellarator de Spitzer
- Date
- 1951 · confidence high
- Place
- Princeton, New Jersey, United States
- Credited to
- Lyman Spitzer
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Spitzer proposed a magnetic confinement device with a helical field produced by external coils, without need for a current in the plasma. It is one of the two main families of magnetic fusion reactors.
The first model operated in 1953 and the Soviet tokamak surpassed it in performance in the late 1960s.
What it led to
- Project Matterhorn at Princeton
- Wendelstein 7-X in Germany
- stable plasma confinement without disruptions