TCV is 20 years old !
© 2012 EPFL
20 years of scientific operation of the TCV tokamak have been celebrated at CRPP.
20 years ago, the EPFL President, Prof. B. Vittoz, clicked on a virtual button that started the first real plasma in TCV. Since then, the counter never stopped increasing; more than 45'000 discharges have now been produced.
Other impressive numbers have been reached one after the other: the plasma temperature has exceeded 150 Millions degrees, a current larger than 1 Million Amperes has circulated in the plasma, more than 4 MW of microwave power has been injected into the plasma, and a large variety of plasma shapes have been produced including, in particular, the ‘snowflake’ configuration, a world premiere.
All current and retired CRPP staff were invited to a reception to celebrate this anniversary. Prof. A. Fasoli thanked all those who contributed from near and far to the success of our tokamak through the years. He also took the opportunity to present the role that TCV will play in the design of the first fusion reactor and more particularly the project of installing a new plasma heating system on TCV. Prof. M. Q. Tran then invited the retirees to blow out the 20 candles and all guests to taste the excellent cake and enjoy the party.