My name is Alexander Liptak, and I am a Plasma-strand Fusion CDT PhD student at the University of Liverpool in collaboration with CCFE. My project is titled “Modelling the interaction of divertor plasmas with tungsten and carbon surfaces”, and is supervised by Dr Mohammad Hasan and Dr Mark Bowden. The project aims to model the interaction of a low-temperature hydrogen plasma with divertor-relevant surfaces, including all relevant plasma surface interactions, using simulation techniques widely used in technological plasma research.
I completed an integrated MSci in Theoretical Physics at the Royal Holloway University of London, with my Master’s project involving the development of the BEAn code; a portable Bragg-edge analysis toolkit for neutron transmission data. The code is now implemented at the ISIS IMAT instrument and continues to be under active development.
My motivation for this project lies in my passion for computational physics and the contributions I hope to make towards achieving a self-sustaining fusion reaction that will bring us closer to a future of clean and abundant power.