Collection

Confined Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion

Submission status: Open
Submission deadline: 11 November 2026

This collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 7 - Affordable and clean energy.

Nuclear fusion is the process powering stellar cores and providing a potential pathway towards meeting global energy demands in a sustainable way. As such, it strongly features among the agenda-setting technologies in the year 2026 [1]. Controlling fusion in a reactor requires stable confinement of plasmas at extremely high temperatures and densities, and for sufficiently long times, providing major technical and engineering challenges.

While recent studies have considerably advanced the performance of magnetic and inertial confinement techniques, plasma instabilities still provide significant disruptions. Emerging approaches in magnetic control, particularly those leveraging artificial intelligence, present exciting opportunities for enhancing plasma performance and stability. Further developments towards practical nuclear fusion thus crucially depend on the interplay of advanced theoretical modelling, experimental validation, and innovative engineering solutions.

This cross-journal collection involving Nature Communications, Communications Physics, Communications Engineering and Scientific Reports aims at exploring a wide range of topics in confined plasmas and nuclear fusion research and invites original research contributions from a variety of devices and laboratories, from tokamaks, stellarators and other compact geometries to world-leading laser and ignition facilities. We also encourage submissions of theoretical and experimental studies addressing plasma instabilities and their mitigation, AI-based approaches for real-time plasma control, and engineering innovations involving advanced materials and reactor design.

[1] Seven technologies to watch in 2026 (Technology feature, Nature, 2026)

To submit, see the participating journals

Article

Taming harmful bursts and heat flux in high-confinement tokamak plasmas

Tokamak walls suffer erosion from steady and bursty heat loads. Here, the authors demonstrate that optimizing 3D magnetic field and cooling gas injection can tame destructive plasma bursts while enabling cooler, safer exhaust conditions.
- Q. M. Hu
- H. Q. Wang
- C. Ye
ArticleOpen Access5 Dec 2025 Nature Communications
Characterisation of turbulence suppression by fast-ion-Alfvénic instability

Turbulence-induced anomalous transport hinders achieving optimal conditions in magnetically confined fusion plasmas. Here, the authors identify a key parameter—the ratio of Alfvénic instability growth to microturbulence growth—that predicts transitions in heat transport, offering a guideline for enhancing plasma confinement and advancing fusion energy research.
- Akihiro Ishizawa
- Emanuele Poli
- Taik Soo Hahm
ArticleOpen Access28 Nov 2025 Communications Physics
Multi-scale Interaction Mechanism for Edge-Localized-Mode Suppression in the Tokamak Edge

Edge localised modes (ELMs) in highly confined plasmas are notoriously difficult to regulate. Here, the authors analyse multiscale modes and interactions by combining experimental measurements from DIII-D and modeling, showing promising results in ELM control.
- Zeyu Li
- P. H. Diamond
- M. E. Austin
ArticleOpen Access21 Nov 2025 Nature Communications
Learning plasma dynamics and robust rampdown trajectories with predict-first experiments at TCV

The authors report on the implementation of a data-efficient machine learning approach to predict plasma dynamics. This enables offline design of robust trajectories to terminate the plasma without disruptive instabilities. Experimental results at the TCV tokamak show statistically significant improvements in key figures of merit and the ability to a priori predict the dynamics of key plasma properties.
- Allen M. Wang
- Alessandro Pau
- TCV Team
ArticleOpen Access6 Oct 2025 Nature Communications
Active ramp-down control and trajectory design for tokamaks with neural differential equations and reinforcement learning

The robust termination of tokamak fusion plasmas poses massive simulation and control challenges. In this work, the authors provide simulation demonstrations of how techniques like neural differential equations and reinforcement learning can help with both real-time feedback control and offline trajectory design.
- Allen M. Wang
- Cristina Rea
- Chuchu Fan
ArticleOpen Access4 Jun 2025 Communications Physics
Divertor shaping with neutral baffling as a solution to the tokamak power exhaust challenge

Power exhaust is one of the biggest challenges stopping fusion energy. This article shows experimental evidence for strategically shaping the power exhaust region as a solution to this challenge, utilising physics understanding to strike a balance between engineering complexity and power exhaust benefits, consistent with reduced models and simulations.
- Kevin Verhaegh
- James Harrison
- the MAST Upgrade Team
ArticleOpen Access23 May 2025 Communications Physics
Generation of field-reversed configurations via neutral beam injection

The field-reversal configuration (FRC) represents a fusion device concept capable of high power density with a compact geometry. Here, the authors report on the generation and sustainment of a FRC by means of neutral beam injection in the C-2W machine at TAE technologies. This contributes towards establishing FRC as an alternative economic fusion device.
- T. Roche
- S. Dettrick
- M. W. Binderbauer
ArticleOpen Access12 Apr 2025 Nature Communications
ITER full model in MCNP for radiation safety demonstration

In this work, authors present an integral MCNP model of the ITER facility for radiation transport, addressing limitations of separate models for the Tokamak and Tokamak Complex. This model streamlines safety simulations, enhancing the robustness and simplicity of radiation safety analysis.
- R. Juarez
- M. Belotti
- J. Sanz
ArticleOpen Access3 Oct 2024 Nature Communications
Stable Deuterium-Tritium plasmas with improved confinement in the presence of energetic-ion instabilities

The use of clean energy sources is essential for the humankind. Here, authors show new experiments carried out with Deuterium-Tritium fusion reactions. Results show that energy production by such reactions can be more efficient than expected, confirming fusion as an alternative to fossil fuels.
- Jeronimo Garcia
- Yevgen Kazakov
- JET contributors
ArticleOpen Access8 Sep 2024 Nature Communications
The impact of low-mode symmetry on inertial fusion energy output in the burning plasma state

Recent improvements in the indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion experiments include the achievement of burning plasma state. Here the authors report the scaling of neutron yield in a burning plasma of Deuterium-Tritium fusion reaction by including the mode-2 asymmetry.
- J. E. Ralph
- J. S. Ross
- G. B. Zimmerman
ArticleOpen Access6 Apr 2024 Nature Communications
A control oriented strategy of disruption prediction to avoid the configuration collapse of tokamak reactors

Confining plasma and managing disruptions in tokamak devices is a challenge. Here the authors demonstrate a method predicting and possibly preventing disruptions and macroscopic instabilities in tokamak plasma using data from JET.
- Andrea Murari
- Riccardo Rossi
- Michela Gelfusa
ArticleOpen Access18 Mar 2024 Nature Communications
How turbulence spreading improves power handling in quiescent high confinement fusion plasmas

Nuclear fusion is one of the avenues pursued to generate carbon-free energy for an increasingly demanding world, but technical instrumental concerns remain, which will impact the realisation and performance of future fusion power plants. The authors employ a combined experimental, computational and theoretical approach, to elucidate the mechanism by which turbulence spreading sets the divertor (a component that extracts heat and ash produced by the fusion reaction) heat load width in fusion tokamak, and demonstrate common trends in the upstream edge turbulence intensity flux, the pressure perturbation skewness, and the turbulence mixing length, which together determine the downstream heat load width.
- Zeyu Li
- Xi Chen
- George R. McKee
ArticleOpen Access15 Mar 2024 Communications Physics
Experimental confirmation of driving pressure boosting and smoothing for hybrid-drive inertial fusion at the 100-kJ laser facility

In laser-driven inertial fusion, finding optimal driving pressure is a major challenge. Here, the authors use a 100 kJ SG laser and a hybrid-drive scheme to demonstrate such driving pressure with the help of the direct-drive laser such that the indirect-drive radiation ablation pressure is turned into a well-smoothed hybrid-drive pressure much greater than the radiation ablation pressure.
- Ji Yan
- Jiwei Li
- Shaoping Zhu
ArticleOpen Access18 Sep 2023 Nature Communications
Disruption prediction for future tokamaks using parameter-based transfer learning

Tokamak devices currently hold the technological advance to be considered the most promising approach to fusion energy, but disruption events prediction is a major challenge for larger devices. The authors show that a machine learning model trained on a smaller tokamak holds promises for transfer of knowledge of disrupting violent events prediction to another, larger tokamak.
- Wei Zheng
- Fengming Xue
- Yuan Pan
ArticleOpen Access17 Jul 2023 Communications Physics
First measurements of p¹¹B fusion in a magnetically confined plasma

The fusion reaction involving proton (p) and boron (11B) has unique advantages over deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion in terms of number of neutrons generated and availability of the fuel components. Here the authors demonstrate the (p,11B) fusion reaction in a magnetically confined plasma at the Large Helical Device.
- R. M. Magee
- K. Ogawa
- M. Osakabe
ArticleOpen Access21 Feb 2023 Nature Communications
A general framework for quantifying uncertainty at scale

Ionuţ-Gabriel Farcaş, Gabriele Merlo and colleagues developed a framework for uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis at scale by focusing on important input parameters. The framework was demonstrated to reduce computational effort and cost compared to standard methods in a turbulent transport simulation in the context of fusion research.
- Ionuţ-Gabriel Farcaş
- Gabriele Merlo
- Frank Jenko
ArticleOpen Access10 Dec 2022 Communications Engineering

Confined Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion

Article

Taming harmful bursts and heat flux in high-confinement tokamak plasmas

Characterisation of turbulence suppression by fast-ion-Alfvénic instability

Multi-scale Interaction Mechanism for Edge-Localized-Mode Suppression in the Tokamak Edge

Learning plasma dynamics and robust rampdown trajectories with predict-first experiments at TCV

Active ramp-down control and trajectory design for tokamaks with neural differential equations and reinforcement learning

Divertor shaping with neutral baffling as a solution to the tokamak power exhaust challenge

Generation of field-reversed configurations via neutral beam injection

ITER full model in MCNP for radiation safety demonstration

Stable Deuterium-Tritium plasmas with improved confinement in the presence of energetic-ion instabilities

The impact of low-mode symmetry on inertial fusion energy output in the burning plasma state

A control oriented strategy of disruption prediction to avoid the configuration collapse of tokamak reactors

How turbulence spreading improves power handling in quiescent high confinement fusion plasmas

Experimental confirmation of driving pressure boosting and smoothing for hybrid-drive inertial fusion at the 100-kJ laser facility

Disruption prediction for future tokamaks using parameter-based transfer learning

First measurements of p¹¹B fusion in a magnetically confined plasma

A general framework for quantifying uncertainty at scale

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