Institute of Plasma Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IPP)

The COMPASS Tokamak played a key role in the physics activities of the TOKAMAK department of IPP since its commissioning in 2011. Originally, it was designed and operated in the 1990's in the UKAEA Culham laboratory in Great Britain. The transport, installation and commissioning of the COMPASS tokamak in 2006 - 2011 enhanced the physics and technical capabilities of the department to a new level, which was also capitalised in the increase of team competencies and acquired physics knowledge in the following years. With regard to the preparations for the installation of the new COMPASS Upgrade tokamak, the COMPASS operation ended in 2021.

COMPASS Upgrade (COMPASS-U) is a new medium-sized (R = 0.9 m) tokamak under construction at the Institute of Plasma Physics in Prague. Designed to address some of the key challenges in next step fusion devices, COMPASS-U features a unique combination of hot metallic first wall operating up to 500 °C and cryogenically cooled copper coils. The latter provides a high magnetic field (Bt = 5 T) and high plasma current (Ip = 2 MA), yielding, e.g. a very narrow power flux decay length (<1 mm). This configuration makes the device an ideal testbed for studying power exhaust, advanced confinement regimes, liquid metal concepts, and other reactor-relevant topics.

https://www.ipp.cas.cz/Compass_U/