Researchers have developed a method that uses a gaming graphics card to control plasma formation in their prototype fusion reactor.

This process, which also occurs in the sun, involves plasmas, fluids composed of charged particles, being heated to extremely high temperatures so that the atoms fuse together, releasing abundant energy.

One challenge to performing this reaction on Earth is the dynamic nature of plasmas, which must be controlled to reach the required temperatures that allow fusion to happen. Now researchers at the University of Washington have developed a method that harnesses advances in the computer gaming industry: It uses a gaming graphics card, or GPU, to run the control system for their prototype fusion reactor.

The team published these results May 11 in Review of Scientific Instruments.

«You need this level of speed and precision with plasmas because they have such complex dynamics that evolve at very high speeds. If you cannot keep up with them, or if you mispredict how plasmas will react, they have a nasty habit of going in the totally wrong direction very quickly,» said co-author Chris Hansen, a UW senior research scientist in the aeronautics and astronautics department.

«Most applications try to operate in an area where the system is pretty static. At most all you have to do is ‘nudge’ things back in place,» Hansen said. «In our lab, we are working to develop methods to actively keep the plasma where we want it in more dynamic systems.»

The UW team’s experimental reactor self-generates magnetic fields entirely within the plasma, making it potentially smaller and cheaper than other reactors that use external magnetic fields.

Story Source: Materials provided by University of Washington. Original written by Sarah McQuate. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.