Energy science and technology articles within Nature Physics

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  • News & Views |

    Inertial confinement represents one of two viable approaches for producing energy from the fusion of hydrogen isotopes. Scientists have now achieved a record yield of fusion energy when directly irradiating targets with only 28 kilojoules of laser energy.

    • Vladimir Tikhonchuk

  • News & Views |

    In a burning plasma, fusion-born α particles are the dominant source of heating. In such conditions, the deuterium and tritium ion energy distribution deviates from the expected thermal Maxwellian distribution.

    • Stefano Atzeni

  • Article |

    Inertial confinement fusion experiments reveal a departure from the expected hydrodynamic behaviour of a plasma when the fusion reactions become the primary source of plasma heating.

    • E. P. Hartouni
    • , A. S. Moore
    •  & A. B. Zylstra

  • Comment |

    Across the world, decisions on investment and policy are made under the assumption of continuous economic expansion. Fundamental physical limits may soon put an end to this phase of development, as foreshadowed by the 1972 report The Limits to Growth.

    • Thomas W. Murphy Jr

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    In burning plasma, alpha particles from fusion reactions are the dominant source of heating. The design choices that resulted in reaching this state in experiments at the National Ignition Facility are reported.

    • A. L. Kritcher
    • , C. V. Young
    •  & G. B. Zimmerman

  • Comment |

    Since the 1950s, international cooperation has been the driving force behind fusion research. Here, we discuss how the International Atomic Energy Agency has shaped the field and the events that have produced fusion’s global signature partnership.

    • Matteo Barbarino

  • Letter |

    In inertial confinement fusion experiments, the effect of the overlapping laser beams on the plasma is predicted to lead to a distortion of the electron distribution function, which has now been observed in experiments.

    • David Turnbull
    • , Arnaud Colaïtis
    •  & Dustin H. Froula

  • News & Views |

    Zirconium alloys are widely used as cladding material in nuclear reactors due to their neutron transparency. Now, it is shown that 88Zr has a surprisingly high neutron capture cross-section exceeding that of other zirconium isotopes by six orders of magnitude.

    • Stephan Heinitz
    •  & Ulli Köster

  • Article |

    A theoretical and numerical approach, validated by experiments at the KSTAR facility, shows how magnetohydrodynamic instabilities in tokamak plasmas can be efficiently controlled by a small relaxation of the confining field into a 3D configuration.

    • Jong-Kyu Park
    • , YoungMu Jeon
    •  & Michael C. Zarnstroff

  • Article |

    Results from the first experimental campaign of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator demonstrate that its magnetic-field design grants good control of parasitic plasma currents, leading to long energy confinement times.

    • A. Dinklage
    • , C. D. Beidler
    •  & M. Zuin

  • Letter |

    The anomalous Nernst effect is usually associated with ferromagnets — enabling a temperature gradient to generate a transverse electric field — but the Berry curvature associated with Weyl points can drive this phenomenon in chiral antiferromagnets.

    • Muhammad Ikhlas
    • , Takahiro Tomita
    •  & Satoru Nakatsuji

  • Commentary |

    Fusion power is one of a very few sustainable options to replace fossil fuels as the world's primary energy source. Although the conditions for fusion have been reached, much remains to be done to turn scientific success into commercial electrical power.

    • Steven C. Cowley

  • Interview |

    Construction of the ITER tokamak, arguably the largest scientific project ever, is well under way in the south of France. Nature Physics spoke with ITER's Director-General, Bernard Bigot, about the challenges ahead — a conversation about physics, engineering, politics and culture.

    • Bart Verberck

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