Bienvenue sur l'Institut Polytechnique de Paris

Congratulations to Sascha Rienäcker for successfully defending his thesis titled “Impact of Magnetic Geometry on the Edge Radial Electric Field in Tokamaks” on March 9th, 2026. Abstract Mitigating plasma turbulence is a major objective of magnetic confinement fusion research, as the resulting transport of heat and particles largely determines confinement quality and thus, the performance and cost of future fusion power plants. Sheared plasma flows...

Relativistic feedback discharge processes are believed to be responsible for intense gamma-ray flashes produced in atmospheric thunderstorms. These phenomena occur over length scales of several hundred meters and could not previously be reproduced in the laboratory. Inspired by these phenomena, we have uncovered a new way to produce and amplify intense bursts of X-rays in dielectric solids through similar physical mechanisms, but on centimeter-scale...

Measurements of absolute atomic oxygen density and reduced electric field are crucial for the understanding and development of plasma-based technologies. Probing them, however, usually requires active methods that are either perturbative or highly costly and complex. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is widely used as it is passive and uses simple equipment. However, extracting reliable quantitative results is difficult. The commonly-used “...