A Guide to the Russian Academy of Sciences - University of Texas ...

In 1988 the construction of the largest in this country T-15 tokamak facility was completed
and the facility adjustment began.
Besides the above mentioned plasma heating methods, the facility is equipped with a
superconducting winding serving to reduce Ohmic loss in generating a toroidal
magnetic field.
The Kurchatov Institute is a scientific leader of Russian design studies under the ITER
International project. The scientists' team of the Institute specifies the project
scientific tasks, conceptual solutions on a reactor, its performance and basic
parameters, formulates the project engineering and technical goals directed towards
achieving a controlled fusion serving a potential power source. The Institute
provides the development of plasma physics experimental and theoretical databases
which serve the basis of the project. Fusion reactor specific features require an
original approach to solving engineering and physics problems of nuclear
technology, the problems of energy removal and conversion, structural materials,
radiation safety, reliability, etc. These problems are also being solved at the
Kurchatov Institute.
The demands of the national controlled fusion program stimulated the creation of novel
present-day technologies. Basing on a wide experience gained in producing, in
particular, high intensity ion and plasma flows, high-power flows of
electromagnetic radiation in optical, RF and X-ray energy ranges, strong pulsed
magnetic fields and electric currents, the effect of the latter on the surfaces of
various materials and poducts was studied. It was established that this can result in
various technological effects: surface cleaning and target material sputtering, ionchemical
etching, alteration of physical and chemical surface layer properties as a
result of accelerated ion penetration, deposition of different material thin films on
finished products etc.
design of the International thermonuclear reactor ITER;
investigations on the thermonuclear complexes TOKAMAK-10 and TOKAMAK-15;
fundamental investigations on physics of pulsed plasma systems.
Low- and medium-energy nuclear physics:
fundamental investigations on nuclear physics and elementary-particle physics;
use of charged particle beams for investigation of materials and development of new
technologies;
nuclear-physical study of matter;
establishment of a Moscow international center of synchrotron radiation;
development of methods and detection systems for recording of charged and neutral
particles;
nuclear medicine; muonic catalysis and alternative methods of breeding.
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