On March 29, 2012, the Max Planck Society entered into an agreement with Princeton University to establish a new center that focuses on fusion research. The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald and Garching are the partners of the new center.
The new Max Planck Princeton Research Center for Plasma Physics will combine the expertise and strengths of both the partners in the area of fusion research to develop a safe, clean and reliable energy technology.
The Department for Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, the MPI for Astrophysics (Garching) and the MPI for Solar System Research (Katlenburg-Lindau) are also involved in the research work of astrophysical plasmas. The collaboration work will lead to increased use of strategies between fusion and astrophysical plasmas research work. In addition, the partnership has planned to apply insights into astrophysical plasmas and fusion to further develop the theoretical models and thus enhance the research on fusion energy for practical and daily application.
Researchers from IPP are working on a Tokamak research in Garching and also constructing the Wendelstein 7-X Stellarator in Greifswald. PPPL uses a spherical Tokamak and conducts laboratory testing on general plasma physics. The laboratory is more interested in stellarator physics, but it is not performing any experiment in this field.
The new centre is expected to provide an opportunity to PPPL to carry out a research work on the stellarator physics. The joint research center will encourage the exchange of researchers, particularly junior scientists. In addition to the Max Planck Princeton Research Center for Plasma Physics, there are 10 Max Planck Centers located at 9 different locations across the world.