The Stellarator of Costa Rica 1 (or SCR-1) is a small modular

stellarator A stellarator confines Plasma (physics), plasma using external magnets. Scientists aim to use stellarators to generate fusion power. It is one of many types of magnetic confinement fusion devices. The name "stellarator" refers to stars because ...

for the magnetic confinement of plasma located at

Cartago, Costa Rica Cartago () is the head city of Cartago canton of the Cartago Province, and is composed of the Oriental and Occidental districts as stated in the administrative divisions of Costa Rica. It was the capital of Costa Rica from 1574 to 1824. His ...

. 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) () 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 Dulce Nombre District, Cartago, Du ...

. It began operation as

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

's first stellarator on 29 June 2016. SCR-1 is of a compact design and has the distinction of having the smallest

aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...

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 Stellarators Cartago, Costa Rica