Supported by FuseNet, Yuliia Volkova and Artem Savchenko attended PlasmaSurf 2018 in Lisbon. Read all about their experiences here!

Yuliia Volkova

Plasmasurf summer school provides an excellent opportunity for students to become familiar with the key issues of fusion research, to learn more about plasma physics and intense lasers. The lectures covering different topics related to plasma physics, namely, MHD description, magnetic and inertial confinement fusion, laser-plasma interaction, computational physics, and data analysis, are delivered by high-skilled professionals. Alongside these aims, Plasmasurf also facilitates networking amongst the participants through well-organized outdoor activities such as surfing, kayaking, rock climbing and many others!

We visited remarkable IST laboratories in Lisbon, where the VOXEL experiments with lasers are carried out. Professor Horacio Fernandes introduced to us the main research activities in ISTTOK Tokamak, so we became informed about the data acquisition system, the wide range of diagnostics and the tokamak engineering equipment implemented here.  Director of IPFN, Bruno Gonçalves, elucidated the ITER project describing the challenges and a full complexity of it, paying attention to the ITER's characteristics and the plasma-surface interaction issues that must be solved.

At the end of the programme, we conducted a remote Langmuir probe experiment by using the E-lab platform and then analyzed the retrieved data. Many thanks to all participants and organizers for a valuable experience and the best memory of this summer.

Artem Savchenko

PlasmaSurf is a summer school on plasma physics, intense lasers and nuclear fusion which aims to introduce you these topics or, in case you are already well-versed, to improve your knowledge in them. Moreover, Plasmasurf is a great opportunity to meet brilliant people, enjoy a lot of outdoor activities and have a good time. The lectures were designed for physics and engineering students from all around the world and covered the main topics of plasma physics. The main focus of this week was on nuclear fusion and intense lasers.

During the week we had the chance to visit the amazing IST laboratories where they showed us VOXEL (Volumetric medical X-ray imaging at extremely low dose) experiments with lasers and explained us how they work. Also as main course we were able to visit ISTTOK Tokamak guided by professor Horacio Fernandes, where he told us about main parameters of the tokamak, diagnostic systems, explained us what they do and how they work.

The worst part of Plasmasurf 2018 was saying goodbye to all the friends we had meet during the week.