New 82.6 GHz Gyrotron Installed at India’s SST-1 Tokamak to Advance Fusion Research

Key facts

• An 82.6 GHz, 400 kW gyrotron has been installed and integrated with the SST-1 tokamak at the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) in Gujarat, boosting India’s fusion research programme.
• The Steady State Superconducting Tokamak-1 (SST-1) is a doughnut-shaped experimental device at IPR in Gujarat designed to study magnetically confined plasma and does not generate commercial electricity.
• The new gyrotron delivers up to 400 kW of radio-frequency power for pulses of 0.5 seconds and is used for electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH), which supports plasma start-up, heating, current drive and control of plasma instabilities.
• SST-1 uses the 82.6 GHz system for second-harmonic heating at a toroidal magnetic field of 1.5 tesla and for fundamental-harmonic heating at 3 tesla, working alongside an existing 42 GHz, 500 kW ECRH system.
• India’s fusion programme has previously produced plasma temperatures exceeding 200 million degrees Celsius, far hotter than the core of the Sun.
• Unlike the Sun, which confines its plasma through immense gravitational force, a tokamak uses strong magnetic fields to hold plasma inside the chamber and keep it away from the machine walls.