Last week I attended the APS Division of Plasma Physics conference in Denver, CO, which was a great meeting full of learning about the state of the art in plasma physics and fusion research, updating about our progress on PFRC experiments, and discussing modeling and experimental techniques and power electronics with fellow attendees. A picture of me with my poster is shown below.
I presented a poster on modeling effects of plasma impurities (trace gases other than the main fuel, hydrogen, which tend to radiate more energy out of the plasma) on our x-ray diagnostics, which we are developing for electron temperature and density measurements. These diagnostics also give information about the electron energy distribution function (EEDF), where we can find the number of electrons at each electron energy. The EEDF hence supplies us with detailed knowledge of the plasma, including how non-equilibrium the plasma is, which can be used for verifying models and informing our other measurements. I implemented a model for line radiation from impurities and applied some more precise bremsstrahlung cross-sections and found good agreement with experiment, giving us higher confidence of our measurements even with impurities present.
There were comprehensive review talks on tokamak experiments, plasma astrophysics, and advanced plasma modeling techniques. There were also many smaller talks and poster sessions capturing the work done on plasma experiments and modeling in the vast array of sub-fields of plasma physics! It was great to also get updates on other field-reversed configuration plasmas at the conference and have fruitful discussion.
The conference venue was a good size, not too large that it would be difficult to make it to other session rooms or too small that it would feel crowded. A picture of the parts of the city surrounding the conference hotel during sunset as well as a glimpse of the surrounding mountains from the room I stayed in are shown below.
There were fire places right outside the conference center that were in good use because the first two days of the conference were pretty cold, reaching down to about 15 Fahrenheit! Since in some circumstances fire can be considered a plasma, and in general, fire has at least some charged particles, these fire pits were referenced in a few talks as an ice-breaker (no pun intended!) for discussing plasmas.
In summary, APS DPP 2023 was a great conference where I had the opportunity to:
(1) Catch up with the state of the art in plasma physics and fusion research.
(2) Present my poster on x-ray diagnostics on the PFRC and get some helpful suggestions and communicate with other groups working on x-ray diagnostics.
(3) Inquire about various groups’ power electronics requirements and setups, and also learn about application areas where people see our technologies providing a clear benefit.
(4) Learn more about plasma experimental techniques and computational/theoretical work that could potentially be applied to our fusion and power electronics work.
And with that inspiration, I’m back to work!
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