Nuclear reactor breakthrough could improve operational reliability 
Researchers at Moscow's National Research Nuclear University claim to have found a way to help protect nuclear reactors from plasma damage, which could result in more reliable operation. Thermonuclear plants, like the ITER reactor being built in France, could provide an almost inexhaustible energy source, if harmful unipolar arcs can be avoided, as these can destroy the tungsten wall of the reactor and cool the thermonuclear plasma. Dmitry Sinelnikov discovered a link between the emergence of unipolar arcs and subsequent formation of snowflake-like structures on tungsten, which influence the impact of an electric field.

One undesirable process that can occur at such plants is the so-called unipolar arc between thermonuclear plasma and the reactor's first wall. This can cause the destruction of the reactor wall and contaminate and cool the plasma, which is unacceptable in the case of controlled thermonuclear synthesis. The mechanism that generates unipolar arcs is not completely understood yet, so research related to this problem is a priority.

Interaction between the plasma and tungsten, which is part of the first wall of a fusion reactor, causes the metal surface to be covered with a huge number of filaments with a diameter of several dozen nanometers and lengths up of to one micron. Scientists call them tungsten fuzz.