Mirror Fusion Test Facility
The Mirror Fusion Test Facility, or MFTF, was an experimental magnetic confinement fusion device built using the tandem magnetic mirror design. It was, by far, the largest, most powerful and most expensive mirror machine ever constructed. Due to budget cuts, it was mothballed the day after its construction was complete, and sat unused for a year before being formally cancelled. $372 million dollars were spent on the system during its lifetime.
The mirror fusion test facility during construction in 1983, part of the Yin-Yang magnets can be observed in the background.
One of the two yin-yang mirrors arrives at LLNL. The plasma was confined in the small area between the two magnets.
Drawing of the MFTF building
Magnetic confinement fusion
Magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) is an approach to generate thermonuclear fusion power that uses magnetic fields to confine fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of controlled fusion research, along with inertial confinement fusion.
A typical plasma in the MAST spherical tokamak machine at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in the UK.
Concept of a toroidal fusion reactor
Cutaway view of the current design for the SPARC reactor
