WENDELSTEIN 7-AS stellarator experiment

Will the innovative coil windings generate a suitable »magnetic bottle« for nuclear fusion? This is the question that is being tackled in the WENDELSTEIN 7-AS stellarator experiment.

The aim of fusion research is to build a power plant which will produce useful energy by fusing atomic nuclei, as opposed to splitting them (fission). To this end, as gas consisting of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, a so-called plasma, must be heated to over 100 million°C.

The magnetic field of the specially shaped coils confines the plasma to prevent it from damaging (or being cooled by) the walls of the toroidal plasma vessel.