Jonathan Citrin appointed as last YES! fellow
The FOM Foundation has awarded the last Young Energy Scientist (YES!) fellowship to former FOM PhD researcher Dr. Jonathan Citrin. For the next four years the young researcher will use the grant to investigate the effect of tungsten on the plasma in fusion reactors. With the YES! fellowships, FOM offers young researchers the opportunity to develop their expertise in the area of fundamental energy research at a foreign top institute. For his research Citrin is going to the CEA Research Institute on Magnetic Fusion (IRFM) in France, close to the international nuclear fusion project ITER.
Citrin carried out his PhD research entitled 'Turbulent Transport in Tokamak Advanced Scenarios' at the FOM Institute DIFFER. He gained his doctorate cum laude in 2012 from Eindhoven University of Technology. "I want to use my scientific knowledge to tackle one of the world's greatest challenges, namely the development of sustainable energy sources. The scientific challenges and the huge potential of fusion energy really captivate me," says Citrin. "With my research I will examine the processes that take place in the reactor and that influence the temperature, flow and density of the plasma. Making good models of this will allow us to develop more stable plasmas and more efficient fusion reactors."
Stable plasmas in tokamaks
Tokamaks, for example in the international experiment ITER, are the most popular type of fusion reactors. In these reactors scientists try to simulate the processes in the core of the sun to provide a sustainable source of energy on earth. In a tokamak, hydrogen isotopes fuse together into helium, in a hot, charged gas (plasma) that is prevented from touching the reactor walls by magnetic fields.
In the YES! project, Citrin will investigate the transport of heavy irons, such as tungsten. "Tungsten is used for the wall of the fusion reactor because of its resilience to high temperatures. However, as a result of erosion tungsten can also end up in the plasma. The accumulation of tungsten in the plasma can reduce the efficiency of the fusion process and the plasma can even collapse as a result of this," explains Citrin. "I want to improve and validate the models for the transport of tungsten in the plasma. If we can understand and predict this better then we can try to control the quantity of tungsten in the plasma."
Original and innovative
The selection committee for the YES! fellowships praised the originality and innovative character of Citrin's research proposal. During the fellowship Citrin will be supervised by professor Tony Donné from FOM Institute DIFFER: "Jonathan is going to set up exciting new research of major importance for the fusion community, with a high chance of scientific breakthroughs. In addition to this his work forms a bridge between two fusion research themes within DIFFER and will help to mould these into a single programme in the future."
YES! fellowships
Citrin is the 5th YES! fellow and with this the last fellow for the current YES! programme to receive a grant from FOM. Earlier YES! fellows are Dr. Joep Pijpers, Dr. Andrea Baldi, Dr. Süleyman Er and Dr. Richard Stevens. The YES! fellowships have been set up to boost energy research in the Netherlands. After a maximum period of three years abroad, the YES fellows return to the Netherlands with the knowledge they have acquired. They then have a further year in which to embed their new knowledge and to lay the basis for new lines of research and a scientific career in the Netherlands.
Further information
* About the YES!-fellowships by FOM
* A film about FOM Institute DIFFER with Jonathan Citrin