The MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's research center for plasma physics and fusion energy, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One of the largest university-based fusion research programs in the world, it conducts research spanning plasma confinement, superconducting magnet technology, plasma-surface interactions, and fusion system design.
The PSFC operated the Alcator series of compact, high-field 📝tokamak machines — culminating in Alcator C-Mod, which held the record for plasma pressure in a magnetically confined device when it completed operation in 2016. That high-field tradition, and design courses taught within the center, produced the 📝ARC reactor design study and the compact net-energy machine concepts that followed from it. The center continues to run joint research programs with private industry, including the 📝high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets work demonstrated at 20 tesla in 2021.
The PSFC is where we come from — our founders did their doctoral work there, our machines descend from its high-field tokamak lineage, and its researchers remain our closest R&D partners through the MIT collaboration that launched the company.