14/02/2026
Yesterday, Panupong J. Rintarak successfully defended his Ph.D thesis, "Particle Simulation of Edge Plasma including Multi Ion Species".
PIC (Particle-In-Cell) simulation is a key research tool for integrating plasma physics and engineering in the divertor of fusion plants. However, in many cases, only one ion species is examined. In reality, the edge plasma in the divertor is a multi-ion-species plasma composed of hydrogen isotopes, helium, impurities, and neutrals. One serious problem is the Monte Carlo (MC) collision scheme for the multi-ion-species plasma. If the plasma consists of several ion species, and the densities of those ions are so different, the MC collision process will be inefficient because the paring of the Coulomb collisions is significantly mismatched. In this thesis, an efficient MC collision scheme that assigns different weights to each ion is proposed. This improvement advances PIC simulations of multi-ion-species plasmas in realistic fusion plasmas.
Also, three undergraduate students successfully completed their undergraduate projects.
We hope for success in the next steps!