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August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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Copper melting behavior at extreme temperatures could inform fusion materials
Using SLAC’s electron camera, researchers recorded timestamps of solid copper atoms (orange) as they melted (yellow) after being blasted with laser heat. This graphic shows how copper atoms changed over a period of several femtoseconds (millionths of a billionth of a second), notated here as fractions of a picosecond. Instead of the predicted collapse, the researchers saw a gradual melting. (Image: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has announced researchers have conducted experiments testing how copper melts under extreme conditions, such as those it might be exposed to in a fusion machine. The results, published in Nature Communications, found that a copper thin film was more resilient to melting than models had predicted, uncovering molecular dynamics that had been missing from calculations.
“These results greatly improve the simulations we use to predict which materials have the best shot at surviving the extreme conditions of future fusion reaction chambers,” said Mianzhen Mo, the SLAC staff scientist who led the research.
2023 ANS WINTER CONFERENCE AND EXPO
Matt Wargon is a Senior Nuclear Engineer at TerraPower. In his current role, he serves as the Reactivity Control group lead for the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE) project. Prior to joining TerraPower, he worked as a Safety Analysis Engineer for SC&EG at VC Summer Nuclear Station.
Matt has been an active member of ANS since 2010 when he first got involved as an undergraduate student. Since then, he has become involved in both local chapters and the national organization. Matt currently serves as the chair of the ANS Young Members Group, as well as a committee member of the ANS Scholarship Policy Coordinating Committee, the ANS Research & Advanced Reactor Coordinating Committee, and the ANS Certification Committee, as well as a member of the Reactor Physics Division Program Committee.
Matt earned his B.S. in Nuclear Engineering and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State University in 2013 and his M.S. in Nuclear Engineering in 2015 also from PSU. He also holds a Professional Engineering license in nuclear engineering in Washington state.
Last modified November 7, 2023, 2:49pm EST
