Research into high-temperature, high-density plasmas which are either magnetically confined or produced by high-power lasers. This research area includes development of novel laser systems, laser physics and the understanding of lasering mechanisms. In addition, it encompasses work into low-temperature, low-density discharge or atmospheric plasmas (technological plasmas). Part of this research area overlaps with the Light-Matter Interactions and Optical Phenomena area.
By the end of the Delivery Plan period, we will have:
Development of researchers will continue, echoing the amount of training supported in the current portfolio and the wish to have young researchers with particular skills and expertise in this field, which is relevant to the nuclear energy industry, for example. It is also envisaged that support of established research groups will be maintained to retain UK capability.
Researchers will have maintained good working interactions with relevant national facilities, especially the Central Laser Facility (CLF), the Orion Laser at AWE and the upgraded Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST-U) at Culham, reflecting the significant proportion of the community that makes use of them. Sharing of facilities at all levels, from local and national to international, will be important in the constrained capital environment.
Highlights:The UK has several key research groups working in this area, with a good balance of activity and spread of investments. The majority of work is investigator-led research, but there has been a steady increase in growth of capability which reflects the strength of this research area in the UK.
Outputs from their work contribute to a wide range of sectors, including nuclear energy where researchers are world-leading in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) (Evidence source 1). Defence, manufacturing and biomedicine have also benefitted (Evidence source 2). Financial support from industry is low however, as many relevant applications for the research are more long-term. Individuals from industry and the research community need to work together to drive technological advances and allow the research to progress so the potential is realised.
There is a robust level of support for training in this area which should be continued and reflects the importance of its input both to numerous other research areas and to several industries. The research remains capital-intensive with significant requirements for specialist equipment and access to national facilities such as the CLF and MAST-U (Evidence source 3), in addition to access to facilities in the US, Asia and Europe, for example. It is recognised that the CLF has played a critical role in the development of plasma-accelerator-based research in the UK (Evidence source 4), while MAST-U has enabled researchers to gain international recognition for advances in fundamental magnetically confined plasma science.
This area is expected to contribute widely to the Prosperity Outcomes, particularly to the following Productive, Connected, Resilient and Healthy Ambitions:
This research area is expected to aid improvements in industry processing.
Advances in understanding plasma-material interactions are key to chip manufacturing, leading to improvements in data processing capability.
Development of lasers for high-speed communications could have an important impact.
Advances in underlying plasma physics is key to addressing a number of challenges related to fusion energy.
Improved laser-based communication and infrastructure, together with lasers for defence applications, will make an important contribution.
This research area can help advance novel treatments for cancer therapy, wound-healing, laser surgery and instrument sterilisation.
Other source:
This diagram shows the top 10 connections between Research Areas within the EPSRC research portfolio. The depth of the segment relates to value of grants and the width of the segment relates to the number of grants shared by those two Research Areas. Please click to see the related Research Area rationale.
We aim to maintain this area as a proportion of the EPSRC portfolio.Maintain
Visualising our Portfolio (VoP)
Visualising our portfolio (VoP) is a tool for users to visually interact with the EPSRC portfolio and data relationships.
EPSRC support by research area in Plasma and Lasers (GoW)
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In the following table, contact information relevant to the page. The first column is for visual reference only. Data is in the right column.
| Name: | Marianne Rolph |
| Department: | Physical Sciences |
| Organisation: | EPSRC |
| Telephone: | 01793 444002 |
