Diagram of the hybrid reactor showing a ring of plasma (cyan) with “banana coils” running through the centre S. A. Henneberg and G. G. Plunk/Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics
A hybrid of two popular nuclear fusion reactor designs could lead to more efficient power plants.
Magnetic confinement fusion reactors use magnetic fields to squeeze a cloud of charged ions, called a plasma, into a tiny volume, which increases the chances of atoms fusing together and releasing energy.
There are two main types of reactor that confine…
