Florian Effenberg

Dr. Florian Effenberg is a Staff Physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and collaborates on projects with the DIII-D tokamak at General Atomics in San Diego, CA. He currently leads Task DSOL48, which focuses on "In-situ coating with solid boron injection to mitigate risks for Q=10" within the ITPA Scrape-Off-Layer and Divertor Topical Group. He also serves as the Deputy Leader of both the FPP Wall Materials Thrust and the DIII-D Wall Change Preparation Task Force.

Dr. Effenberg earned his PhD in Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His doctoral research, supervised by Professor Oliver Schmitz, explored three-dimensional plasma edge transport and radiative power exhaust scenarios in the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) limiter and island divertor. During his PhD, he conducted leading experiments at the W7-X stellarator at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany. His work on the first limiter and island divertor experiments using the 3D plasma-fluid and kinetic neutral edge transport Monte Carlo code EMC3-EIRENE earned him the James D Callen Fellowship for Excellence in Plasma Theory.

After completing his PhD in 2018, he continued his research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, leading further experiments during the second island divertor campaign at W7-X. In the summer of 2019, Dr. Effenberg joined PPPL as a Research Associate in the ITER & Tokamaks Department, focusing on plasma-material interaction and core-edge integration studies. His work involves real-time injection of low-recycling materials into the DIII-D tokamak.

His research interests span nuclear fusion, plasma physics, 3D divertor physics, and plasma surface interactions. Dr. Effenberg is a member of both the American Physical Society and the American Nuclear Society. Prior to his PhD studies, he was a Research Assistant in the Department of Energy and Climate Research at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH in Jülich, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Curriculum Vitae News

Contact:

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Tokamak Experimental Sciences Department

100 Stellarator Rd

Princeton, NJ 08540

USA

On research assignment at:

General Atomics / DIII-D 

3550 General Atomics Ct 

San Diego, CA 92121

USA

Publications:

Selected papers

F. Effenberg et al, 'Integrated modeling of boron powder injection for real-time plasma-facing component conditioning', Nuclear Materials and Energy 42, 101832, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nme.2024.101832; arXiv:2407.00821v3, Accepted manuscript

F. Effenberg et al, 'In-situ coating of silicon-rich films on tokamak plasma-facing components with real-time Si material injection', Nucl. Fusion 63 106004, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/acee98; arXiv:2304.03923, Accepted manuscript

F. Effenberg et al, 'Mitigation of plasma-wall interactions with low-Z powders in DIII-D high confinement plasmas', Nuclear Fusion 62 106015, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ac899d;  arXiv:2203.15204, Accepted manuscript

F. Effenberg et al, '3D modeling of boron transport in DIII-D L-mode wall conditioning experiments', Nuclear Materials and Energy 26, 100900, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nme.2021.100900 , Published manuscript

F. Effenberg et al, 'First demonstration of radiative power exhaust with impurity seeding in the island divertor at Wendelstein 7-X', Nuclear Fusion 59 (10), 106020, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ab32c4 , Accepted manuscript

F. Effenberg et al 'Investigation of 3D effects on heat fluxes in performance-optimized island divertor configurations at Wendelstein 7-X', Nuclear Materials and Energy 18, 262-267, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nme.2019.01.006, Published manuscript

F. Effenberg et al, 'Numerical investigation of plasma edge transport and limiter heat fluxes in Wendelstein 7-X startup plasmas with EMC3-EIRENE', Nucl. Fusion 57 036021, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/aa4f83, Accepted manuscript

M. Morbey, F. Effenberg, et al, 'Deuterium retention in pre-lithiated samples and Li–D co-deposits in the DIII-D tokamak', Nuclear Materials and Energy 43, 101915, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nme.2025.101915; arXiv:2502.18061

E.M. Hollmann, A. Bortolon, F. Effenberg et al, ' Dynamic measurement of impurity ion transport in runaway electron plateaus in DIII-D', Physics of Plasmas 29, 022503, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0080385

K. Schmid, F. Effenberg et al, 'Integrated modeling: Coupling of surface evolution and plasma-impurity transport', Nuclear Materials and Energy, Volume 25, 100821, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nme.2020.100821

H. Niemann, M.W. Jakubowski, F. Effenberg et al, 'Features of near and far scrape-off layer heat fluxes on the Wendelstein 7-X inboard limiters', Nucl. Fusion 60 016014, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ab472c

V. Perseo, F. Effenberg et al, 'Direct measurements of counter-streaming flows in a low-shear stellarator magnetic island topology', Nucl. Fusion 59 124003, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ab4320

T. Barbui, F. Effenberg et al, 'Radiative edge cooling experiments in Wendelstein 7-X start-up limiter campaign', Nucl. Fusion 59 076008, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ab18c5, Accepted manuscript

L. Stephey, A. Bader, F. Effenberg et al, 'Impact of magnetic islands in the plasma edge on particle fueling and exhaust in the HSX and W7-X stellarators’, Physics of Plasmas 25, 062501 2018, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5026324, Accepted manuscript

H. Frerichs, F. Effenberg et al, 'Reconstruction of recycling flux from synthetic camera images, evaluated for the Wendelstein 7-X startup limiter', Nucl. Fusion 57 126022, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/aa8515, Accepted manuscript

G.A. Wurden, C. Biedermann, F. Effenberg et al, 'Limiter observations during W7-X first plasmas', Nucl. Fusion 57 056036, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/aa6609

Selected conference contributions

F. Effenberg et al, 'Reducing tungsten plasma-material interactions with boron and boron nitride powders in the DIII-D V-shaped divertor', poster, video, 65th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics Oct 30-Nov 3, 2023, Denver, CO, USA

F. Effenberg et al, 'Reducing plasma-material interactions in the DIII-D low-Z and high-Z divertors with impurity powders', poster, 29th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2023) 16–21 October 2023, London, United Kingdom

F. Effenberg et al, 'In situ growth and replenishment of PFC coatings with real-time material injection for enhanced steady-state plasma operation', contributed talk, The IEEE Symposium on Fusion Engineering, (SOFE 2023), July 9–13, 2023; UK Atomic Energy Authority; Oxford, UK

F. Effenberg et al, 'EMC3-EIRENE modeling of toroidally-localized material injections and its effect on plasma-material interactions', contributed talk, 19th International Conference on Plasma-Facing Materials and Components for Fusion Applications, (PFMC-19), May 22–26, 2023; Bonn, Germany

F. Effenberg et al, 'In-situ growth of silicon-rich layers with Si granule injection in DIII-D H-mode plasmas', poster, 25nd International Conference on Plasma Surface Interactions 2022, (PSI-25), June 13–17, 2022; Jeju, Korea

F. Effenberg et al, 'Mitigation of plasma-material interactions with low-Z powders in DIII-D H-mode discharges', invited talk, video, 63rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, November 8–12, 2021; Pittsburgh, PA, USA

F. Effenberg et al, '3D modeling of boron transport in DIII-D L-mode real-time wall conditioning experiments', poster, video, 24th International Conference on Plasma Surface Interaction in Fusion Devices (PSI-24), Jeju, Korea, May 31st - June 5, 2020

F. Effenberg et al, 'Development of impurity seeding for divertor power flux handling in Wendelstein 7-X long pulse scenarios', poster, The 19th International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials (ICFRM-19), Oct 27 – Nov 1, 2019, La Jolla, California, USA

F. Effenberg et al, 'Radiative Power Exhaust in the Island Divertor and Access to Controlled Detachment with Impurity Seeding’, contributed talk, 22nd International Stellarator and Heliotron Workshop 2019 (ISHW 2019), Madison, WI, USA

F. Effenberg et al, ‘Power Exhaust Control by Impurity Seeding in the Island Divertor at Wendelstein 7-X', contributed talk, 27th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2018), 22-27 Oct 2018, Ahmedabad, India

F. Effenberg et al, 'Exploration of Radiative Edge Cooling in the Island Divertor at Wendelstein 7-X', contributed talk, 23rd International Conference on Plasma Surface Interactions in Controlled Fusion Devices (PSI 23), Princeton, NJ, 17-22 June 2018

F. Effenberg et al, 'Analysis of the heat flux characteristics in the helical scrape-off layer of Wendelstein 7-X start up scenarios by 3-D modeling', contributed talk, 58th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics,  Oct 31 - Nov 4, 2016, San Jose, CA, USA

More to be found: google scholar or NCBI