Magnetic Confinement

Using magnetic fields to hold a hot plasma away from material walls.

Charged particles spiral along magnetic field lines, so a suitably shaped field can hold a hot plasma suspended away from any wall. Magnetic confinement is the approach behind tokamaks and mirrors alike — both Kronos machines confine magnetically, the burner adding an electrostatic plug.

Magnetic confinement works because charged particles spiral tightly around field lines, so a suitably shaped field suspends a hot plasma away from any wall. The art is closing the field into surfaces that trap particles for long enough — the tokamak does it with a plasma current, the stellarator with shaped coils, and the mirror with end plugs plus an electrostatic barrier.