The Stellarator of Costa Rica 1 (or SCR-1) is a small modular
stellarator for the
magnetic confinement of plasma located at
Cartago, Costa Rica. It is developed by the plasmaTEC group of the Plasma Laboratory for Fusion Energy and Applications at
Costa Rica Institute of Technology
The Costa Rica Institute of Technology (TEC) ( es, Tecnológico de Costa Rica) is a university in Costa Rica specializing in engineering and advanced science and research, modeled as an institute of technology. Its main campus is located in the Du ...
. It began operation as
Latin America's first stellarator on 29 June 2016.
SCR-1 is of a compact design and has the distinction of having the smallest
aspect ratio of any operating stellarator device (>4.4). Its design is influenced by the small Spanish stellarator
UST-1.
History
In 2010, SCR-1 was originally proposed to be much bigger in size (major radius of 460.33 mm, plasma radius of 42.2 mm) and scale (aspect ratio of 5.7, magnetic field of 0.0878
Tesla), and was expected to complete in 2011.
However, the development of SCR-1 took five years (between 2011 and 2015) to complete.
References
{{Fusion power
Fusion power
Stellarators