Magnet Technology for Fusion Energy

ENERGY IRC and WINTON PROGRAMME joint seminar: 

Speaker: Dr Alex Davies, Tokamak Energy Ltd 

This talk gives an overview of recent developments in magnet technology towards fusion applications, including world-record achieving 24 Tesla magnets and the ongoing construction Demo4, the world’s first complete set of superconductor magnets in a tokamak configuration. 

Tokamak Energy Ltd. is a world-leading fusion energy company based in Oxford, UK. Our mission is to develop and commercialise nuclear fusion as a source of safe, clean, affordable energy in the 2030s. We are solving this challenge through combining high-performing, compact spherical tokamak designs with new advances in high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet technology. We are the only private company with over a decade of experience in designing, building, and operating tokamaks, and we were the first to achieve plasma temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius — the relevant threshold temperature for commercial fusion — in our tokamak, ST40.  

Talk is open to all, tea and biscuits available for attendees

Alex Davies received his doctorate in physics from University of Cambridge in 2022, supervised by Prof. Suchitra Sebastian. His doctoral research investigated high-temperature superconductivity using high magnetic fields and low temperatures. He has been a visiting researcher at a number of high-field laboratories including the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, USA; the Wuhan High Magnetic Field Laboratory, China; The Institute of Solid-State Physics, Japan; and the European Magnetic Field Laboratory, Germany. Outside academia, he has experience working as a researcher in the energy sector and in venture capital.