Physics Students at University of Puget Sound Build a Plasma Chamber

Campus, Students

Ella Slattery ’25 and her fellow students gained hands-on experience and learned about the physics of fusor devices.

Ella Slattery ’25 had only been on campus for a few weeks when she laid eyes on the plasma chamber. As a first-year student at University of Puget Sound, she was on a tour of the physics department and got to chatting with postdoctoral researcher Brett Klaasen Von Oorschot about a project he was working on with some of his students—a small, silver device connected to a mass of wires and sitting on a rolling cart.

“I’d never seen a fusor before. It was utterly fascinating,” Slattery recalls. “I immediately knew I wanted to get involved and learn as much as I could about it.”

Ella Slattery ’25 chose to study at Puget Sound to get a solid foundation in the liberal arts, which she plans to translate into a career in aerospace engineering.

The first inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusor was developed in the 1960s. In an IEC device, also known as a fusor or a plasma chamber, deuterium gas is pumped into a vacuum chamber. Two metal grids and a high-voltage electric field are used to ionize the gas, causing the atoms to accelerate toward the center, where they could collide in a miniature fusion reaction. While they initially showed promise as a means of creating fusion energy, researchers eventually moved on to other designs. Fusors are relatively simple devices and while they aren’t a very efficient way to generate energy, they have become popular with hobbyists and are often used to introduce students to nuclear physics concepts.

In Spring 2021, Klaasen Von Oorschot taught Physics 201 and as part of the course, he partnered with his five students to build the fusor. The following year, the Physics Club took over the project, continuing to refine the device in an effort to produce plasma and look for evidence of neutron production, which would signal that fusion was occurring inside the chamber.

The fusor was constructed by students in a Physics 201 course before the project was handed over to the Physics Club.

Slattery was initially drawn to the project as a way to gain hands-on experience in physics and engineering. Alongside her fellow students, Slattery learned to diagnose electrical issues, worked with various conductive and insulating materials, and picked up practical lab skills including soldering and operating a drill. Finally, after months of work, the team caught their first glimpse of plasma when they saw a ghostly blue glow through the window of the device.

“The first time we produced plasma was mind-blowing,” Slattery says. “To see all of the colors we were able to create with different currents was like looking at the Northern Lights—and we were able to recreate it in this tiny, little tube. I don't think I'll ever get over it.”

Fusors were first developed in the 1960s, using collisions between charged atoms to produce fusion reactions. While they were a technical dead-in the search for nuclear fusion, they became popular with hobbyists starting in the 1990s.

As a physics major and a mathematics minor, Slattery chose Puget Sound because of its commitment to experiential learning opportunities and vibrant student organizations like the Physics Club. She was also drawn to Puget Sound’s unique undergraduate curriculum which blends courses in the sciences and the liberal arts. In addition to her work on the plasma chamber during her first year on campus, Slattery also played tenor saxophone with the university concert band. After completing her bachelor’s degree, she plans to pursue an engineering degree and launch a career in the burgeoning field of environmentally-friendly rocket design.

While the team never managed to get the device to produce neutrons in a fusion reaction, Slattery is still grateful for the experience and how it helped her understand complicated theoretical concepts through a real-life application.

“Working on the fusor solidified my love of physics. It makes me really excited to be a part of future projects, too. I’ve realized that there is so much out there to learn.”

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