Reference Devices
TMX and Historical Tandem Mirrors
The 1980s experiments that established tandem-mirror plugging physics.
- Type
- Tandem mirror
- Era
- 1980s
The Tandem Mirror Experiment and its contemporaries in the 1980s demonstrated the ambipolar-plug principle and thermal barriers that define the tandem-mirror concept. Their physics — reworked with modern high-field magnets — underpins the Kronos burner.
The burner is a modern realisation of this heritage.
Common questions
What were TMX and the historical tandem mirrors?
TMX and its successors were the experiments that developed tandem-mirror physics — end plugs and ambipolar potentials — the direct ancestors of the Kronos burner concept.
What did they show, and what limited them?
They demonstrated the plugging physics but were limited by the magnet fields then available. Modern REBCO reaching 26.49 T is what revives the concept for the burner.