Mervi Mantsinen

Group Manager

Celebrating 40 Years of ICRF Physics on JET: Key Insights and Lessons for Future Fusion Devices

Mervi Mantsinen during her talk “40 Years of ICRF Physics on the JET Tokamak: Highlights and Lessons Learned for Future Facilities” at the 25th Topical Conference on Radio-Frequency Power in Plasmas. Photo credits: H. Faugel (IPP)

The 25th Topical Conference on Radio-Frequency Power in Plasmas took place from 19 to 22 May 2025 and attracted more than 130 participants. Our group leader, Mervi Mantsinen, delivered an invited talk at this conference reviewing key milestones from four decades of Ion Cyclotron Range of Frequencies (ICRF) physics on the Joint European Torus (JET), highlighting its significant contributions to fusion research and implications for future reactors.

JET, Europe’s leading tokamak device, has achieved exceptional performance surpassing its design specifications, operating with magnetic fields of up to 4 T, plasma currents of 7 MA, and auxiliary heating powers totalling 37 MW. Its versatile ICRF system, with a frequency range of 25–56 MHz, has enabled a wide array of heating and current drive experiments.

Read more

32nd European Fusion Programme Workshop

The workshop started with a welcome by Director of the IFMIF-DONES España Consortium Angel Ibarra Sanchez. Image credit: IFMIF-DONES

From 28 to 30 January, our group leader Mervi Mantsinen attended the 32nd European Fusion Programme Workshop in Granada, Spain. More than a hundred experts in fusion physics and technology took part and shared their progress and visions within the European Fusion Programme.

This year’s theme was “Nuclear Engineering and Physics for Fusion Power Plants”, and key topics included “Materials Testing”, “Fuel Cycle and Shelter”, “Fusion Reactor Life Cycle and Safety” and “Towards Fusion Power Plants”. Participants also had the opportunity to visit the University of Granada-DONES Research Centre in Escúzar, Granada.

Read more

Our new journal paper in Nuclear Fusion on modeling of frequency-sweeping Alfvén modes

Alfvénic instabilities driven by energetic particles pose a challenge to the efficient operation of magnetic confinement fusion devices. These modes can dispel fast ions leading to the introduction of significant heat loads onto plasma facing components and degradation of overall plasma confinement. One class of Alfvénic instabilities known as reversed shear Alfvén eigenmodes (RSAEs) are of particular risk in devices with reversed shear rotational transform profiles. Reversed shear configurations have recently been of interest because of their enhancement to confinement quality. With this in mind, further study of RSAEs is necessary.

Read more

Breaking Barriers: Launch of OECD-NEA Report on Improving Gender Balance in Nuclear Sector

Credit: OECD/NEA

On March 8, coinciding with the International Women’s Day, our group attended the webinar “Improving gender balance in the nuclear sector: Report launch“ organized by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The nuclear industry is a crucial part of our energy infrastructure, providing a significant portion of the world’s electricity. However, the sector has traditionally been male-dominated, with women making up only a small fraction (less than 25%) of the workforce. The same applies to its sub-sectors including fusion where our group belongs.

In the webinar on March 8, a report was launched to address the issue of gender imbalance in the nuclear sector. The report provides insights and recommendations based on the first publicly available international data on gender balance in the nuclear sector. The data was collected from over 8 000 women in the nuclear workforce in 32 countries, as well as human resources data from 96 nuclear organisations in 17 countries. Based on the findings, a comprehensive, evidence-driven policy framework is proposed with practical recommendations.

Read more

Private fusion industry is growing in both investment and confidence, says FIA’s 2022 Annual Report

The Fusion Industry Association (FIA), a non-profit advocacy organization representing nearly 30 fusion start-ups, released its second annual report on the state of the global fusion industry this July. The report provides an update on the milestones achieved in the last year by each of 33 companies surveyed as well as an aggregated picture of growth in the industry as a whole using data collected from the companies.

Read more