Job Title: Plasma Physicist – Turbulence and Transport
Location: Milton Park, Abingdon (OX14)
Salary: Competitive, depending on experience
Background:
The Company has unlocked a new route to scalable fusion power that is cost-effective and does not require huge infrastructure and capital expenditure. The technology could revolutionise the world’s energy production – it will be possible to produce more energy, more cheaply and with fewer harmful side effects (e.g. long term nuclear waste or carbon emissions).
They aim to accelerate the development of fusion energy by combining two emerging technologies – spherical tokamaks and high-temperature superconductors. The company’s innovation has been featured on Channel 4 news, BBC News Click, Reuters internet news channel and they received a Technology Pioneer Award at the World Economic Forum in 2016. This is the chance to join a fast-growing high technology company with an agile, dynamic team and to tackle the challenge of a lifetime.
The Role:
Do you want to help make fusion power a reality? Are you a plasma physicist looking for a unique and exciting new opportunity? If so, the Company are seeking talented and innovative individuals that are passionate about accelerating the development of fusion power to join the physics team. Their mission is to transform the way the world generates power by creating a clean, safe and sustainable source of energy for current and future generations and their innovative approach to fusion is based on two emerging technologies: spherical tokamaks (STs) and high-field magnets made from high temperature superconductors (HTS).
Experimental results from MAST and NSTX have shown that the thermal energy confinement time within spherical tokamaks has a strong favourable dependence on increasing toroidal field (reducing collisionality). When extrapolating to reactor relevant regimes this improved confinement opens the possibility of compact fusion. To investigate the effects of toroidal field on plasma performance the Company has constructed the high field spherical tokamak ST40. To date ST40 has operated with 1.5T toroidal field (already the world’s highest field ST) and will soon be commissioned up to its design specification of 3T. They are seeking a talented scientist to interpret experimental results using a transport code (most likely TRANSP).
In parallel to the ST40 experimental campaign they are also designing the future tokamaks ST-F1 and ST-E1. The successful candidate will use the transport code to predict the performance of these devices and inform the decision of device parameters (e.g. choosing the toroidal field and plasma current).
Finally, they’d like to understand the nature of confinement from a theoretical first-principles perspective and develop reduced transport models. To this end they’d like to develop gyrokinetic turbulence simulations both in-house and through collaborations with world-leading scientific laboratories.
Personal Skills and Attributes:
Essential Selection Criteria:
- PhD in plasma physics or closely related equivalent experience
- Experience working in a research environment
- Ability to work efficiently on own initiative
- Willingness to develop new and existing collaborations
- Highly motivated to deliver against challenging objectives in a compressed timescale
- Ability to contribute effectively in a multi-disciplinary team of engineers and scientists
- Willingness to learn and adopt new techniques and technologies
- Ability to effectively communicate results to both technical and non-technical colleagues
- Organised approach to tackling complex problems
Desirable Selection Criteria:
- Familiarity with tokamak/plasma modelling codes. In particular any knowledge of transport codes and/or gyrokinetic codes.
- Experience of programming languages such as Fortran/C++/Matlab/Python/Unix
- Publication history
Benefits:
- 25 Days Holiday (plus bank holidays)
- Company Pension scheme: Company contribution of 5% of salary after 3 months’ service
- Eligible for company share option scheme after one years’ service
- Company bonus scheme, discretionary, dependent on performance
- Private medical insurance after 3 months’ service
Please note: Only candidates with the relevant skills and experience will be contacted regarding this position. If you do not hear back within 10 days of submitting your application then unfortunately you have been unsuccessful. However, you may be contacted in the future to discuss other opportunities.
No terminology in the advert or job description is intended to discriminate on the grounds of a person’s gender, marital status, race, religion, colour, age, disability or sexual orientation. Every candidate will be assessed only in accordance with their merits, qualifications and abilities to perform the duties of the job.
Please click the APPLY button to send your CV and Cover Letter for the role.
Candidates with the experience or relevant job titles of; Graduate, Nuclear Physicist, PHD Graduate, Nuclear Scientist, Plasma Scientist may also be considered for this role.
