- Now that the fusion industry has reached the holy grail known as “ignition,” the next major challenge is designing components that can withstand plasma many times hotter than the Sun.
- One such component—called the divertor—handles the hottest surface temperatures in the fusion devices known as tokamaks, and the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) just upgraded its divertor from carbon to tungsten to withstand these hot temperatures for longer.
- A tungsten divertor is what will be used on the future International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) when it goes online next year, so KSTAR will provide invaluable data.
