EUROfusion has announced the successful completion of JET DTE3, the third and final deuterium-tritium campaign at the Joint European Torus (JET) in Culham, UK. The campaign, which took place over the course of seven weeks from August to October 2023, involved over 300 scientists from across Europe.
Experiments with deuterium and tritium are of great importance, as future fusion reactors will also work with this fuel mixture. JET is currently the only existing fusion facility that can carry out experiments with deuterium and tritium.
For this reason, the D-T experiments at JET are very important, as they have optimized fusion reactions and developed techniques to manage e.g. heat dissipation or material development. The knowledge gained from these experiments will play a major role in future reactors such as ITER and DEMO.
JET, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in June 2023, will cease operations at the end of this year.
You can find more information about the campaign in these two video series: in the short videos from UKAEA, JET Science Programme Leader Joelle Mailloux explains the experiments of each week of the campaign in an easy-to-understand way. The EUROfusion videos feature scientists who were involved in the campaign, explaining the focus of their work and its importance. The topics are: Water activation in fusion, Laser Induced Desorption-Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry and Impurity gas seeding.