The American Nuclear Society (ANS) has bestowed its distinguished Nuclear Historic Landmark designation on the pioneering Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) that ran from 1982 to 1997 at PPPL. The groundbreaking facility laid the foundation for future fusion power plants and set world records for fusion power (10.7 million watts) in 1994 and total fusion energy production from 1993 to 1997. The achievements marked a major step toward producing on Earth fusion — the power that drives the sun and stars — as a safe, clean and abundant source of energy for generating electricity.

The landmark designation marks the second high honor received by PPPL in recent years. In 2018 the American Society of Mechanical Engineers recognized the laboratory as an Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark for its achievements in the quest to develop magnetically controlled fusion energy.

The TFTR facility, under the leadership of physicist Richard Hawryluk, who headed the TFTR Project at the time, pioneered the study of mixtures of hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium (D-T) to fuel fusion reactions. The experiments, begun in December 1993, were the first to use the 50-50 D-T fuel mix that future fusion power plants will use.

The ANS presented a plaque to the Laboratory that recognizes TFTR “For demonstrating significant fusion energy production and tritium technologies for future nuclear fusion power plants and the first detailed exploration of magnetically confined deuterium-tritium fusion plasmas.” The Society has awarded such landmark designations since 1985 to identify and memorialize public and private nuclear ventures that were placed in service 20 or more years ago and where “outstanding physical accomplishments took place that were instrumental in the advancement and implementation of nuclear technology and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”

Elena Belova, a principal research physicist whose work has advanced key areas of fusion research at PPPL, was elected a 2020 Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). The APS annually recognizes as fellows no more than one-half of one percent of its more than 55,000 worldwide members.

“I am honored to be chosen as an APS fellow,” said Belova, a 23-year member of the Theory Department, “It is good to know that my work is being appreciated and recognized. I am also most grateful to those friends and colleagues from the Lab and wider plasma physics community who supported me over years. This achievement wouldn’t be possible without them. It also made me remember [former PPPL Director] Ron Davidson, who was the best person and mentor.”

The APS cited Belova for her, “outstanding contributions to the development of novel numerical and theoretical models leading to improved understanding of the behavior of highly energetic particles and associated plasma instabilities in compact tori and spherical tokamaks.

Belova became the second woman physicist in the PPPL Theory Department when she joined the Laboratory in 1997 with a doctorate from Dartmouth College. In 2005 she received the Katherine E. Weimer Award for Women in Plasma Physics — a national recognition named for the first woman theorist at PPPL.

PPPL received a U.S. Department of Energy Sustainability Award for an innovative three-year program to employ a greener water treatment method for treating non-potable water used for experiments and other purposes. PPPL also received a gold EPEAT award from the non-profit Green Electronics Council for making 98 percent of its electronics purchases EPEAT-certified. It was the sixth such award PPPL has received since 2015.

PPPL won the Sustainability Award in the innovation category for being the first non-industrial site in New Jersey to substitute peracetic acid (PAA) for chlorine, which can affect the quality of surface water and potentially harm aquatic wildlife. Peracetic acid is a clear colorless liquid of hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid, the main component of vinegar. The chemical breaks down quickly into environmentally friendly products.

Improving the quality of surface water is important for wildlife and humans, said Rob Sheneman, head of PPPL’s Environmental Services Division. “It’s important for all of us because surface water not only provides us with recreation, swimming, fishing, and boating activities, but a significant portion of the drinking water is taken from surface water. It’s not just good for the animals and the fish but it’s good for us because ultimately we’re going to drink that, and that means less treatment of the water before you drink it, to make it safe.”

Physicist George “Hutch” Neilson of PPPL received the 2020 Nuclear & Plasma Sciences Society (NPSS) Merit Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for his decades of notable achievements. These include his contributions to plasma physics research and oversight of collaborations with fusion experiments around the world, from the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator in Germany to the international ITER experiment in the south of France. The honor includes a $5,000 award.

Neilson, who heads ITER Projects at PPPL, said he is honored by the recognition. “I’m touched. It means a lot because I’m a plasma physicist but I’ve spent my career managing teams of physicists and engineers. I like to think that it’s not just a recognition of me but it’s a recognition of what I’ve been trying to accomplish to support fusion engineering.”

Neilson currently oversees PPPL’s contributions to ITER Diagnostics by a PPPL team focused on the design and fabrication of seven diagnostics that are part of the U.S. contribution through US ITER. The diagnostics will measure the superhot, charged plasma gas under fusion conditions in which ITER is to produce the first largely self-sustaining experimental fusion reactions.

Neilson is typically modest about his current work. “There are some days where you say, ‘the whole project would have been better off if I hadn’t gone to work,’” he said. “Of course, you get into some situations that are frustrating when you’re trying to push forward. But you realize after a while that it’s a complex set of agendas and that’s part of your job as a leader to navigate your way through that as best you can.”

Elizabeth Paul, developer of a far-reaching method for optimizing magnetic confinement stellarator fusion facilities, has won a Princeton University Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to advance the method at PPPL. Paul received her doctoral degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, in May and will join the Princeton University Department of Astrophysical Sciences, from which she earned her bachelor’s degree. She will work under the supervision of Amitava Bhattacharjee, head of the Theory Department at PPPL and a Princeton professor of astrophysical sciences.

Stellarators, twisty alternatives to more widely used doughnut-shaped tokamaks, run without the risk of damaging disruptions that tokamaks face. Paul has developed a unique mathematical method to speed up the optimal design of the complex magnetic coils in stellarators. “I’m very honored for having been selected for this fellowship and I’m excited to be spending time at PPPL and working with Amitava,” Paul said. “My planned research fits in very nicely with current work at the Lab.”

Paul is among the 16 scholars from across academic disciplines that Princeton University selected in 2020 for presidential fellowships, with the goal of increasing diversity. The fellowship program recognizes standout doctoral graduates from groups historically or currently underrepresented in the academy or in certain disciplines. Her three-year fellowship, with the first two years supported by Princeton University and the third year by PPPL, will bring her mathematical insights to the Laboratory

PPPL physicist Erik Gilson won third place at the Princeton University Keller Center’s 15^th Annual Innovation Forum for his invention with a team of PPPL researchers of an advanced liquid centrifuge. The centrifuge can separate the components of a liquid for applications such as fruit juice production, processing ink pigments, treating waste water from oil sands processing, and other uses.

Gilson presented the technology, which was patented in 2019, at a day-long online forum on hosted by the Keller Center. He was one of 14 inventors who presented inventions, from a treatment for hepatitis to an interface for reading poetry, to a panel of judges that included entrepreneurs, scientists, state officials, and academics. “I was very excited to win,” Gilson said. “Having the patent issued and having an award like this will be helpful in talking to people about future opportunities.”

Centrifuges are a billion-dollar industry. The advanced technology could be marketed as a separate product or could be used to retrofit existing centrifuges, Gilson said. The device has top and bottom rings that spin at different rates, allowing the inner cylinder to spin faster than the outer cylinder. The different speeds result in better separation of materials at a faster rate than in standard centrifuges and produce neither turbulence nor remixing.

Physicist Sam Cohen of PPPL and three collaborators have received the New Jersey Research & Development Council’s 2020 Thomas Edison Patent Award for Emerging Technology for their invention of a compact rocket engine thruster propelled by a small fusion reactor.

Cohen, along with Michael Paluszek, president of Princeton Satellite Systems (PSS); Gary Pajer, formerly of Princeton Satellite Systems; and Yosef S. Razin, a former intern of Cohen’s who later worked for the company, received the honor.

“Thomas Edison has made contributions to so many fields, whether it’s entertainment, industry or national security, from the phonograph to national laboratories,” Cohen said. “We’re greatly honored to have our efforts associated with his name. We hope to make contributions in research and furthering science, and providing electrical power for space exploration.”

The rocket thruster is based on the Princeton Field Reversed Configuration (PFRC-2) fusion reactor that Cohen is developing at PPPL. The PFRC has received four patents and funding from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) plus five grants from NASA and support from other agencies.

“I like doing physics,” said Cohen. “It’s kind of like watching your grandchildren, whatever they’re doing is exciting and new. That’s what I like about physics: it’s always exciting and new.”

Exploration of the processes behind supernova shockwaves has won PPPL physicist Will Fox the John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research. The honor, awarded by the American Physical Society (APS), recognizes “a recent outstanding achievement in plasma physics research.” Fox shares the award with 10 physicists in the U.S., Japan, and Britain.

“I appreciate this recognition from the APS and the community,” Fox said of the award, which is named for pioneering physicist John Dawson who headed the PPPL Theory Department from 1966 to 1973. “The groups receiving this award have made a great deal of progress, and I think that’s exciting,” Fox said. “And I appreciate the research environment at PPPL that embodies everything from fusion to astrophysics.”

The award consists of $5,000 to be divided equally among the winners and a certificate citing their accomplishments.“Will continues to break new ground in laboratory astrophysics,” said Jon Menard, deputy director for research at PPPL. “His work and insights have frequently opened doors to new discoveries.”

The Dawson honor is the second APS award that Fox has won in as many years. His leadership of laboratory experiments that bring astrophysical processes down to Earth received the 2019 Thomas H. Stix Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Physics Research. Stix launched the graduate Princeton Program in Plasma Physics at PPPL.

Hyeon Park, a renowned Korean physicist who developed a key diagnostic system for fusion while a principle researcher at PPPL, has won the prestigious 2020 Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Prize for Plasma Physics. The award from the Division of Plasma Physics of the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS-DPP) honors Park for unprecedented new physics results through his original and pioneering works in fusion plasma diagnostics. This work has produced an essential diagnostic tool for tokamak fusion facilities throughout the world.

“This is indeed a great honor for me,” said Park, a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and the first Korean to receive the prize named for University of Chicago astrophysicist Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for studies of the evolution of stars. “The main reason I returned to Korea from PPPL,” Park said, “was to elevate understanding of the fusion plasma physics through KSTAR [Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research],” Korea’s flagship fusion facility at Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE).

Following 23 years at PPPL Park became a professor at Pohang University of Science and Technology in Korea, where he established a fusion plasma research center. He moved in 2013 to his current position as a professor at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in Korea and has served as a director and senior advisor at the KSTAR research center since 2015.

Physicist Yuan Shi, who received his doctorate from the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics in 2018, has won the 2020 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award presented by the American Physical Society (APS). The award recognizes “exceptional young scientists who have performed original doctoral thesis research of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of plasma physics.”

The honor, named for pioneering physicist Marshall N. Rosenbluth who spent 13 years as a visiting research scientist at PPPL, recognizes Shi’s thesis for contributions ranging from improved understanding of plasma-based laser amplification to the adaptation of quantum field theory to describe plasma physics in electromagnetic fields so intense that relativistic-quantum effects must be considered.

This award was wholly unexpected. “When I got the award notification, I was surprised and thrilled,” Shi said. “I was surprised because I know of many outstanding theses that weren’t selected for the award. My thesis was finished in 2018 at Princeton University and it wasn’t selected last year, so I wasn’t expecting it to be selected this year either — so it was surprising news when it arrived.”

Shi, the eighth graduate of the Program in Plasma Physics at PPPL to receive the Rosenbluth honor since it was first awarded in 1986, is a Lawrence Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Researchers there are applying Shi’s work on relativistic-quantum plasmas to develop algorithms for quantum computers, which are expected to tackle problems far faster than the classical computers used today.

Ian Ochs, a graduate student in the Program in Plasma Physics, has won a Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellowship, the most prestigious of the honorific fellowships that the University awards annually for academic excellence. The award goes to one student in each of the four graduate school divisions — humanities, social sciences, natural and physical sciences, and engineering.

Ochs captured this top honor in the physical sciences division for the 2020-21 academic year.

The fellowship includes full tuition and a stipend to free recipients from other obligations as they complete their dissertations. The only previous winner of the Jacobus Fellowship coming from the Program in Plasma Physics was Stanislav Boldyrev, who graduated in 1999 and is now a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin. “This is really an honor and a wonderful surprise,” said Ochs, who is exploring the use of plasma waves to harvest fusion energy for his dissertation under the supervision of Professor Nat Fisch, Director of the Program in Plasma Physics and Associate Director for Academic Affairs at PPPL.

Ochs entered the Program in Plasma Physics in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University. As a Princeton graduate student, supported in part by a DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (CSGF), his work has ranged from developing — with fellow graduate student Elijah Kolmes — a first-of-a-kind code to explore the effects of particle transport to developing and evaluating plasma-based schemes for nuclear waste cleanup.

The American Physical Society (APS) has recognized Marco Miller, a summer intern at PPPL, for producing an outstanding research poster at the world-wide APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) gathering. Miller, a senior at Columbia University majoring in applied physics, used machine learning to accelerate a leading PPPL computer code known as XGC as a participant in the DOE’s Summer Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program.

The modifications, which will enable the XGC code to calculate more quickly, could help expand the physics included in detailed simulations of the plasma that fuels fusion reactions. The poster, prepared under the mentorship of PPPL physicist Michael Churchill, showed how Miller used machine learning techniques in his research and was presented at the APS-DPP conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“It felt great to get the award,” Miller said. “It was an honor, especially in a room with a lot of very good posters.”