Measurement Innovations for Fusion Energy and Plasmas

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The DOE SC program in Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) hereby announces its interest in receiving new and renewal applications for awards in the area of Measurement Innovations for Fusion Energy and Plasmas. The FES program seeks to expand the fundamental understanding of matter at very high temperatures and densities and to foster the scientific foundation that will enable an eventual fusion energy source. The FES Measurement Innovation program supports the development of novel and innovative diagnostic techniques and their application to new, unexplored, or unfamiliar plasma regimes or scenarios. Awards under this FOA will enable researchers to deploy diagnostics with the spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution necessary to validate plasma physics models that predict the behavior of fusion plasmas. These advanced diagnostic capabilities are then used at domestic and international facilities as part of FES’s research subprograms in Burning Plasma Science: Foundation, Burning Plasma: Long Pulse; Discovery Plasma Science: Low Temperature Plasmas; and Discovery Plasma Science: High Energy Density Laboratory Plasma. Ongoing use of mature diagnostics systems is financially supported through the research programs at the FES user facilities and through support from the subprograms. Applications for the development of diagnostic techniques to measure plasma parameters not previously accessible, or at a level of detail greater than previously possible, or at a substantially reduced cost, size, or complexity are sought in the areas of Fusion Science, High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas and Low Temperature plasmas. Applications proposing substantial extension of existing diagnostics concepts for measurements in new, unexplored, or unfamiliar plasma regimes or scenarios are within the scope of this FOA. Applications addressing future diagnostic needs of research on long-pulse facilities are also within the scope of this FOA. Development of new, innovative technologies, materials, and detectors of all kinds of radiations and particles from present and future magnetic fusion experiments, which will enable any of the above advancements in diagnostics, are also within the scope of this FOA. While the testing of novel diagnostics on major fusion facilities is not expressly outside the scope of this FOA, applications seeking funding for applying proven diagnostic techniques to such facilities will not be considered under this FOA. The FES program supports such diagnostic applications through separate FOAs linked to the experimental facilities.

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