Instrumentation

An important aspect of  fusion energy research is the development of advanced instrumentation for making measurements in the extremely challenging environment of high temperature plasmas. Within the Fusion-CDT, much of this research is based at the Centre for Advanced Instrumentation (CfAI) at Durham University with a focus on the development of new diagnostic instrumentation for magnetically confined fusion plasmas (tokamaks), hardware-accelerated computer simulations and interpretation of fast ion diagnostics. The research includes both new optical instrumentation and methods for efficient handling of large volumes of real-time data. These areas exploit the synergies with astronomical spectroscopy and adaptive optics research within CfAI and currently involve collaborations with the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy and the York Plasma Institute. The group is also linked to the fusion materials research activity in the Superconductivity Research Group in Durham and is affiliated to the Durham Energy Institute.