Nature Phys. doi:10.1038/nphys1510 (2010)

Charged particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field form a plasma, and tend to clump together when disturbed by the turbulent solar wind. This 'pinching' effect has been replicated in the laboratory to create a hot, dense plasma. The achievement opens up the possiblity of developing a device to fuse deuterium and helium-3 — a process that could replace radioactive tritium-based reactions in proposed fusion reactors.

Michael Mauel of Columbia University in New York and his co-workers used a copper magnet to levitate a half-tonne superconducting dipole magnet. Microwave energy injected into a deuterium-gas-filled vessel containing the levitating magnet created the hot plasma; it also induced electric fluctuations that caused the ionized particles to pile up in the plasma's core.