Cooperative Agreement DESC0020342

This National Science Foundation Project Grant award of $586,041 supports research at the University of Michigan from September 1, 2022 through August 31, 2025 under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049). The award will investigate the evolution of instabilities in plasma implosions driven by dynamic screw pinch compression. Researchers will evaluate competing theories computationally and experimentally regarding the roles of electrothermal instability, coronal plasma...

This Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) supports a study of the impact different types of obstacles make on turbulent, magnetized plasma flow in a wind-tunnel laboratory experiment. The $475,490 award to Bryn Mawr College, effective from April 15, 2025 through March 31, 2028, will fund an experiment using a coaxial plasma gun to launch a turbulent magnetized plasma flow down a vacuum chamber. The...

This Project Grant award, provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under its Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), enables continued experimental exploration of eruptive plasma behavior in a laboratory setting. The $597,571 award, effective September 1, 2024 through August 31, 2027, supports research aimed at advancing the understanding of multi-scale phenomena in real plasmas. The project will focus on studying the observed X-ray generation in a magnetized,...

The National Science Foundation awarded Avalanche Energy Designs Inc. a $274,890 Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) Project Grant to characterize the fusion gain factor Q for their Orbitron micro-fusion reactor technology. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to use particle-in-cell code, experiments, and plasma loss mechanism analysis to optimize fusion gain factor modeling and enable mitigating solutions for future small-scale fusion reactor...

This $265,965 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) supports research and development by Nearstar Fusion Inc., a for-profit organization, on a new approach to fusion energy for grid-based electric power. The project aims to perform computational modeling, analytical calculations, and design work to de-risk and establish a point design for a "hypervelocity gradient field fusion" concept. This...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $904,240 Project Grant under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to the University of Rochester to support an effort to understand the complexities of turbulence in high energy density plasmas. The 3-year project, running from August 1, 2024 to July 31, 2027, aims to characterize plasma turbulence across different scales using advanced interferometry and imaging diagnostics at the university's HADES pulsed power facility....

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Physics Project Grant award of $340,000 supports collaborative research between Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison to advance the understanding of microscale plasma processes in shock and turbulent environments. The project aims to develop physics-based models of kinetic, non-equilibrium processes in astrophysical plasmas, focusing on particle heating/acceleration in shocks and thermodynamics/transport driven by...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) supports an experimental study of space-like plasmas at West Virginia University's PHASMA facility. The $749,989 award, granted on June 15, 2025, aims to investigate how energy is transferred from waves to particles in space-like plasmas through wave-particle correlation measurements. The research addresses open scientific questions in plasma physics, including...

This $276,489 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) supports a research program at Cornell University to study the physics of turbulent plasma in a laboratory setting. The research will use an imploding carbon wire-array Z-pinch driven by a new pulsed-power generator to generate magnetized plasma turbulence in a highly collisional regime. Advanced diagnostics will be used to characterize the transition from...

This $850,000 National Science Foundation project grant supports research at the University of Colorado Boulder to advance understanding of particle acceleration in plasmas driven by lasers. Specifically, the three-year award will fund simulation and experimental studies of optical field ionization-generated plasma channels for particle acceleration using laser wakefield acceleration. Researchers will conduct accurate simulations of plasma channel formation, characterize generated...