I am studying a PhD at the University of Liverpool under the supervision of Dr Paul Bryant. My project is entitled “Complex Magnetised Plasmas” and is designed to investigate the transport of dust in tokamak plasmas. This will be achieved through means of controlled experiments in a radio frequency low temperature magnetised plasma at Liverpool and dust experiments on MAST.
During certain instabilities in tokamak plasmas, such as ELMs, large heat and particle fluxes can erode the tokamak walls and eject dust particles into the plasma. This can affect the plasma in a variety of ways such as causing plasma disruption and instabilities. We will be using a capacitively coupled rf plasma source combined with a powerful electromagnet to investigate how the particles move and interact with each other in the plasma. Advanced plasma diagnostics for magnetised plasmas such as emissive probes and optical emission spectroscopy as well as dust diagnostics will be used to fully characterise the plasma and dust transport. The ultimate end goal is then to verify and improve existing dust transport codes for use in predicting dust transport in the next generation of tokamaks such as DEMO and ITER.
Matthew is now a CDT Alumnus
Linkedin Profile: Matthew Smith