“It is promising”, said Prof Steward Prager, Director of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), of the prospect of ASIPP-PPPL future cooperation, during his visit to ASIPP Tuesday June 22. This is another visit from PPPL high management to Hefei within one month, after Dr Michael Charles Zarnstorff, Deputy Director, Dr Richard Hawryluk, former Deputy Director.

Prof LI Jiangang, Director of ASIPP and his deputy Prof WAN Baonian welcomed Prof Prager, introduced ASIPP research, EAST experiment and ITER-CN project, and China fusion roadmap, showed the guest ASIPP major facilities. Prof Prager also gave an overview talk about the research activities at PPPL, including its National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), NSTX Upgrade, Lithium Tokomak experiment, ITER design and fabrication, National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX), and so on.

During the day, the host and guests had a deep discussion on future bilateral cooperation. Based on the current sound cooperation basis, both sides foresee vast cooperation opportunities in front of two institutions, from diagnostics, data acquisition, steady-state operation, plasma start-up, joint experiments, personnel training to the pilot fusion plant. 

“We will try to enlarge it, and give a global view of different activities in cooperation”, said Prof Prager. It is agreed that two institutions will focus on a few major themes, and make sure this cooperation “optimized” and “as good as it can be”.