Matteo Fontana receives the Itoh Prize

Matteo Fontana © Y. Martin / EPFL 2017

Matteo Fontana © Y. Martin / EPFL 2017

At the Conference on Plasma Physics of the European Physical Society (EPS), the 'Kyushu University Itoh Project Prize' was awarded to Matteo Fontana, PhD student at the SPC, for his poster on turbulence measurement in the TCV tokamak.

Matteo Fontana's poster mainly showed results of turbulence studies in TCV tokamak plasmas, obtained by correlation measurements of electron temperature fluctuations. In particular, he showed the strong reduction of the fluctuations in the periphery of the plasma when its shape goes from a 'D' to an 'inverted D'. Moreover, the estimation of the correlation between radially separated measurements allowed him to characterize the width of the turbulent structures at the periphery of the plasma. He has thus found that the size of these structures is also reduced in an inverted D-shaped plasma. This set of results helps explaining the increase in confinement in the case where the plasma has the form of an 'inverted D'.

The 'Kyushu University Itoh Project Prize' is awarded to the PhD student presenting the best poster on turbulence, transport phenomena or plasma confinement at the Annual Conference on Plasma Physics of the European Physical Society. As the recipient of this award, Matteo Fontana is invited to visit Kyushu University, Japan, for one week, all expenses paid.