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; please contact the appropriate physics group leader if you wish to be involved.
For more information
-
- The announcement also includes a list of DIII-D Program contacts
Funding Opportunity Announcement: Innovative Fusion Technology and Collaborative Fusion Energy Research in the DIII-D National Program
A new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for collaborative work at DIII-D has been posted at https://science.osti.gov/fes/-/media/grants/pdf/foas/2023/SC_FOA_0002904.pdf (this and all FES FOAs can be found here).
The timetable for responding to the FOA is as follows. Please follow the links above for the complete set of instructions, but to summarize:
- January 11, 2023: FOA posted
- February 15, 2023: Pre-application submission due and required
- February 23, 2023: Applicants should receive an encourage/discourage response from DOE FES
- Immediately following reception of an encourage recommendation, the applicant will need to work with a DIII-D research contact to complete a Record of Discussion. Please note that it is the applicant's responsibility to adhere to all due dates; we are here to help you but you must be proactive!
- See below for more information about the Record of Discussion. process
- The Record of Discussion form is submitted to DOE as part of your complete proposal package
- March 30, 2023: Submission deadline for application
Questions about the FOA should be directed to Dr. Matthew Lanctot .
More about Records 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 Punit Gohil .
IMPORTANT: It takes time to prepare and review these, and the process is rather compressed with only 35 days between the FES response to your pre-proposal and the final proposal submission deadline. 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.
- IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIVING ENCOURAGEMENT FROM DOE: Contact Punit Gohil
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:
- March 7 (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)
- March 14: 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.
Career and postdoctoral opportunities at DIII-D
New job opportunities and postdoctoral positions are available at DIII-D. Positions are posted here for many participating institutions (not just General Atomics). To see the latest opportunities in a new window, click the button.
Participate!
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 listed in the Announcement on Opportunities for Collaboration on DIII-D (October 2022) for more detailed information.