24/10/2025
Fusion in Full Color — A Glimpse Inside the Tokamak
What you’re watching isn’t just beautiful — it’s physics at its most extreme.
This is a plasma pulse inside the ST40 tokamak at Tokamak Energy, captured at 16,000 frames per second.
Each pulse lasts only 0.2 seconds, yet within that brief interval, matter is propelled to temperatures surpassing those of the Sun’s core. The visible pink glow observed originates from the plasma’s cooler periphery. Concurrently, the core, characterized by millions of degrees of heat, remains imperceptible to the human eye due to its emission of radiation within the X-ray spectrum.
Midway through the shot, lithium is introduced into the plasma. As it interacts, it first glows red when excited, then shifts to green as it becomes ionized (Li → Li⁺), revealing the helical magnetic confinement field lines that define the tokamak’s path.
From an engineering standpoint, this footage offers a rare visualization of:
-Magnetic confinement symmetry — the invisible architecture that holds plasma together.
-Impurity transport and edge plasma behavior are both critical to minimizing erosion on plasma-facing components.
-The promise of lithium wall conditioning is a key innovation to improve plasma stability and reduce recycling losses.
Fusion remains one of the grand challenges of modern materials and energy engineering — a domain where plasma physics, metallurgy, cryogenics, and magnetic design converge.
Every pulse brings us a step closer to sustained fusion power — a clean, limitless energy source built on the same principles that light the stars.
