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Become a DIII-D User
About the DIII-D Program
The DIII-D National Fusion Facility is inviting collaboration in its upcoming program. The DIII-D team is a national and international collaboration amongst over 100 institutions. Collaborators manage elements of the program, generate ideas and innovations, lead experiments, build and operate diagnostics and other equipment, analyze data, provide theory and modeling support, and report and publish results world wide. Opportunities also exist for graduate and undergraduate students. In particular, the facility provides specific opportunities for PhD student run time, and provides support to their training and engagement.
The goal of the DIII-D program is to develop the solutions for future fusion reactors and the scientific basis to project them with confidence. This program targets the resolution of a compact fusion pilot plant concept and preparation to ensure success in ITER. Research in 2024 will enter an exciting new chapter, with a new modular divertor that allows advanced scenario demonstration at higher triangularity and elongation, the installation of high-field-launch LHCD and 4 MW of ECH. This will permit new explorations of the Advanced Tokamak concept for steady-state fusion, alongside continued high priority work to resolve stable high-performance discharges for ITER. An emphasis is also placed on development of innovative divertor and pedestal solutions, their underlying science, and the integration of core end edge solutions.
In this work a strong focus is placed on developing a validated physics understanding of the foundational processes and quantitative predictive simulation capability. This benefits from a comprehensive set of high resolution 1D, 2D and 3D diagnostics. New systems have been or will be commissioned including 2D Thomson scattering, ion temperature and EUV/VUV spectrometer for divertor physics; Lyman-alpha measurements of edge neutral profiles at multiple locations; helium beam for edge density profile; Doppler-free saturation spectroscopy; gamma ray imager for runaway electron physics; high resolution bolometers; and a range of turbulence, energetic particle and profile diagnostic upgrades. A further campaign of Frontiers Science is being considered, for which separate calls will be issued later.
There are many opportunities to learn the techniques of fusion and train personnel at the facility, with most staff executing support roles for their colleagues. Provision of DIII-D is a team effort, and many users provide direct year round support and assistance to the program, with the facility providing office space, IT support and other assistance and training.
An upcoming announcement will invite new proposals from all potential collaborators, as well as for engagement, analysis, new diagnostics or other hardware, and experiment. The FY23 experimental campaign has already begun. See below for more information about how to be involved in the DIII-D research program.
For more information
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- The announcement also includes a list of DIII-D Program contacts
Becoming a participant
The DIII-D program welcomes new ideas for research, which can be submitted at any time. Experimental planning for 2024-25 will begin later this year, with a Research Opportunities Forum and an open competition for the Torkil Jensen Award for Innovative Experiments. Please contact the area leaders (see below) for more detailed information.
If you would like to visit (in-person or remote) DIII-D to participate in experiments, start here:
- Discuss the proposed work with the relevant Experimental Science group leader to see how it fits within the research structure
- Burning Plasma Physics: George McKee
- Edge and Boundary Physics: Morgan Shafer
- Integrated Plasma Scenarios: Chris Holcomb
- Technology: [Coming Soon]
- Based on those discussions, the Experimental Science Directorate will identify a GA host for you
- Please download (right click and select “Download Linked File”) the form that applies to you, fill it out (these are fillable PDFs), and return it to Fran Castilleja
.
- Host begins dialog with future collaborator on scope of work
- GA host will initiate cyber access and safety training
The process is described in these slides.
Funding Opportunity Announcements
There are currently no Funding Opportunity Announcements posted that target DIII-D. When one is posted it will appear here.
About Records of Discussion
This mainly applies to those writing proposals for funding from DOE in response to a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), but there are other circumstances where you may need to complete a record of discussion.
All applicants for funding to participate in the DIII-D research program will need to include a completed Record of Discussion with their final application (not needed for the pre-application). If you have questions about that process, or to be matched with somebody at DIII-D for that discussion, please contact Chuck Greenfield .
IMPORTANT: If you are responding to an FOA from DOE Fusion Energy Sciences, you almost certainly have a short window to complete this process. Please recognize that yours will not be the only ROD we're working on during this time, so it is very important that you be proactive in completing your ROD in a timely manner. Please abide by the deadlines that will be set when an FOA is issued.
The steps in the ROD process are:
- IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIVING ENCOURAGEMENT FROM DOE: Contact Chuck Greenfield
to be matched with a DIII-D Program research contact. Your discussion should begin immediately.
- After your research contact discussions, the ROD will have to be reviewed and signed by the following. Please make sure your ROD progresses to the point of beginning each of these discussions by the indicated due dates. Failure to adhere to these dates may result in your ROD not being complete in time for proposal submission (dates will be added when the next FOA is posted):
- Step 1 (in parallel):
- Experimental Science Director (Craig Petty)
- DIII-D Diagnostics Leader (Suk-Ho Hong; for some types of proposals this might be the Operations Director, George Sips)
- Computer Resources responsible officer (Sterling Smith)
- Step 2: DIII-D Director (Richard Buttery)
Note that our role in this process is not to judge your proposal, but rather to (1) help you prepare a proposal that is consistent with the capabilities and plans of the DIII-D Program, and (2) to make sure we understand (and can explain to DOE) what resources your proposed work would need from the DIII-D Program.