I am an Electrical Engineering graduate who studied Nuclear Fusion at the University of York, during my degree I was fascinated by physics that governs Fusion and the kind of potential it holds. It inspired me to look into a PhD in the area.
My PhD project is titled “Off-axis neutron camera for MAST Upgrade” and will be supervised by Prof. Marco Cecconello (University of Durham) and Dr. Juan Francisco Rivero Rodríguez (UKAEA). In fusion plasmas, fast ions have energies much higher than the thermal plasma background. Fast ions are generated by external auxiliary heating such as Neutral Beam Injection (NBI) and Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ICRH) or by the fusion reactions themselves. In the former cases, fast ions are hydrogen isotopes with energies in the range from tens of Kev’s up to a few Mevs. Fusion reactions produce, in addition to hydrogen isotopes, alpha particles with energies in the MeV range. The project will focus on the design, development, construction, installation and commissioning of a multi-channel, collimated neutron flux monitor dedicated to the measurement of the neutron emissivity off-axis, where the fast ions are being deposited by the off-axis NBI.