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Around this time last year I was in the midst of researching for my master thesis on fusion technology, keen to work on a project related to this grand effort of harnessing the energy of stars on earth. Little did I know that this September I would visit the largest stellarator device in the world, Wendelstein 7-X, and participate in the Max Planck IPP Summer University for Plasma Physics and Fusion Research taking place in Greifswald.

I have done my master thesis at “Laboratorio Nacional de Fusión” (LNF) at CIEMAT (Madrid). I was there from March to September 2022 to work on the characterization of the confinement of energetic ions in optimized stellarators under the supervision of José Luis Velasco. Even though the LNF is known to have the stellarator TJ‐II (picture bellow), I worked with W7‐X. In that way, I numerically explore the evolution of fast particles losses over a scan of different configurations of W7‐X.

Between 11.Sep.2022 and 16.Sep.2022 I attended the IPP Summer University 2022 in Greifswald, Germany. This summer university focused on fusion plasma physics and it was held and organized by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. Students from all over Europe and also from other continents participated in this event, so it was a perfect opportunity to meet young physicists from all over the world. During these 5 days, we had a lot of lectures about fusion plasma physics.

During SUMTRAIC 2022 in Prague, after an introduction on the first day, to the Compass tokamak and the Institute of Plasma Physics, I started working on a project with a Portuguese student called Miguel. First, we worked on processing data from the EMTRAIC 2016, successfully reproducing that teams findings about the density dependence of runaway electron generation.

The aim of the event was to provide insight into various research areas in plasma physics through lectures, with particular regard to stellarator physics. In my opinion it fulfilled its purpose, I have a picture now about the open questions in theoretical and experimental fusion research.

My master’s thesis project has been done in collaboration between the EPFL in Lausanne and the physics department of ULB in Brussels. The Swiss Plasma Center (SPC), located on the EPFL campus, has hosted me for six months, allowing me to work on the Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV). My project has been supervised in Switzerland by Christian Theiler, Olivier Février and Harshita Raj and in Belgium by Mustapha Tlidi, with the aim of studying the presence of toroidal asymmetries in TCV, during localized Nitrogen gas seeding experiments.

I spent a week in Greifswald, Germany at the IPP Summer University. We had the chance to hear lectures from great researchers in the field of fusion plasma physics and got to know the two main fusion device types: tokamak and stellarator in depth. The summer school also offered other activities. We had the chance to see the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in person, which was a great experience for me since I wrote my bachelor’s thesis about it. Also, we got behind the scenes looks at some of the auxiliary systems like the gyrotrons of the ECRH.

My internship took place in a laboratory belonging to the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) called the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC). The main purpose of the SPC is to make ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) a success. Then, the following aim is to exploit the results obtained with ITER for use in DEMO (DEMOnstration power plant). ITER will prove that fusion can be made on Earth and DEMO will prove that fusion energy can be commercialized.

The summer school was held at the Culham Science Centre in the UK from July 18 to July 28, 2022. I stayed at William Miller’s building in Oxford. The experience was great. It was an opportunity to get a broad overview of fusion problems as well as an in-depth description of plasma physics. The Professors were all competent and available for discussion and questions.