Cooperation between IPP und TUM to be intensified

Joint professorships / IPP fusion research to enhance TUM’s new focus on energy sciences

IPP is working out the principles for a fusion power plant, which will derive energy from fusion of light atomic nuclei, just as happens in the sun. The fuel is a hot, ionised hydrogen gas, called plasma. As TUM is to establish a new main area for the energy sciences, the two institutions have agreed to intensify their hitherto successful cooperation.

TUM and IPP scientists are already collaborating in various fields of research, e.g. diagnostics of hot plasmas, interaction with materials, and computer simulation. Plasma physics is also one of the compulsory optional subjects for a degree in physics at TUM, with two scientific fellows of IPP giving regular lectures there as honorary professors.

The three new joint professorships are now to enhance the TUM’s capacity for practicals, tutorials, and lectures in fusion research, viz. in the fields of plasma edge and divertor physics, plasma-wall interaction, and scientific computation in plasma physics. The new appointees will be both professors at TUM and heads of a research division or project group at IPP.