Recent advances in plasma confinement, heating, and stability studies at the Globus-M2 spherical tokamak

This paper presents an overview of recent research advances on the Globus-M2 spherical tokamak over the past two years. Upgrades to the diagnostic complex are reported. A novel inter-shot boronization technique demonstrated superior wall conditioning, achieving effective charge <1.1 and doubling the neutron yield through enhanced fast ion confinement. The hot-ion mode was established as a natural regime, with ion temperatures up to 4.7 keV, revealing that D-neutral beam injection (NBI) provides superior ion thermal insulation compared to H-NBI due to higher toroidal momentum input. Ion cyclotron resonance heating experiments demonstrated effective bulk ion heating and beam ion acceleration. For the first time in a spherical tokamak, the high-field side high-density phenomenon was identified, with SOLPS-ITER modeling confirming the dominant role of plasma drifts. MHD stability studies characterized Alfvén eigenmodes causing localized wall loads up to ∼30 MW/m2, identified locked modes as a key performance limitation, and demonstrated access to small-edge localized modes (ELM) and ELM-free regimes at reduced triangularity. These results provide the foundation for the design of the next-generation Globus-3 spherical tokamak.

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Journal
Physics of Plasmas
Published
2026-04-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0319818
Primary Topic
Magnetic confinement fusion research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Recent advances in plasma confinement, heating, and stability studies at the Globus-M2 spherical tokamak

A.S. Dzhurik, S.E. Alexandrov, G.A. Troshin, Н.В. Сахаров et al.
Physics of Plasmas
Magnetic confinement fusion research
article

Recent advances in plasma confinement, heating, and stability studies at the Globus-M2 spherical tokamak

A.S. Dzhurik, S.E. Alexandrov, G.A. Troshin, Н.В. Сахаров, E. A. Tyukhmeneva, Н. Н. Бахарев, Е. И. Пинженин, М. И. Патров, Г. С. Курскиев, A.S. Alexandrov, В. Б. Минаев, V. Yu. Goryainov, V. Yu. Sergeev, А. М. Пономаренко, A. N. Kvashnin, E. Z. Gusakov, И. М. Балаченков, В. А. Токарев, S. V. Ivanenko, A N Popov, O. Sotnikov, A. Yu. Yashin, A. D. Melnik, В. В. Солоха, В. И. Варфоломеев, Н. А. Хромов, G. Yu. Sotnikova, S. V. Filippov, М.С. Кулыгин, Е. Г. Жилин, Yu. A. Kashchuk, A. G. Razdobarin, I. Senichenkov, A. Yu. Ivanov, V. A. Kornev, K.D. Shulyatiev, Е. Е. Мухин, E. E. Tkachenko, O. M. Skrekel, П. Б. Щеголев, Yu. V. Petrov, A.Yu. Tokarev, A.K. Kryzhanovsky, E.M. Khilkevitch, P. A. Bagryansky, A. L. Solomakhin, A. D. Khilchenko, A. A. Kapralov, A. S. Mareev, S. V. Krikunov, N. V. Ermakov, A. V. Bondar, I. V. Miroshnikov, A. Yu. Telnova, I. V. Kedrov, N. S. Zhiltsov, A. N. Novokhatsky, V. A. Rozhansky, A. E. Shevelev, E. G. Kaveeva, N. V. Teplova, O. S. Medvedev, S. Yu. Obudovsky, A.E. Konkov, V. M. Timokhin, A. N. Koval, V. K. Gusev, K. A. Kukushkin, F. V. Chernyshev, V. A. Trofimov, E. N. Bondarchuk, M. K. Buts, V. A. Solovey, A. A. Kavin, A. N. Golyakov, S. Yu. Tolstyakov, V. N. Tanchuk, D. D. Korobko, E. O. Kiselev, A. B. Mineev, A. A. Voronova, V. V. Dyachenko
article en

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of recent research advances on the Globus-M2 spherical tokamak over the past two years. Upgrades to the diagnostic complex are reported. A novel inter-shot boronization technique demonstrated superior wall conditioning, achieving effective charge <1.1 and doubling the neutron yield through enhanced fast ion confinement. The hot-ion mode was established as a natural regime, with ion temperatures up to 4.7 keV, revealing that D-neutral beam injection (NBI) provides superior ion thermal insulation compared to H-NBI due to higher toroidal momentum input. Ion cyclotron resonance heating experiments demonstrated effective bulk ion heating and beam ion acceleration. For the first time in a spherical tokamak, the high-field side high-density phenomenon was identified, with SOLPS-ITER modeling confirming the dominant role of plasma drifts. MHD stability studies characterized Alfvén eigenmodes causing localized wall loads up to ∼30 MW/m2, identified locked modes as a key performance limitation, and demonstrated access to small-edge localized modes (ELM) and ELM-free regimes at reduced triangularity. These results provide the foundation for the design of the next-generation Globus-3 spherical tokamak.

Physics of PlasmasVol. 33(4)
St Petersburg University (RU), Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (RU), Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (RU), Scientific Research Institute of Precision Mechanics (Russia) (RU), V. A. Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences (RU), Minnesota Project (US), Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (RU), Ioffe Institute (RU)
Russian Science Foundation, State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM, Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 18%
Magnetic confinement fusion research
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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