Graduate students Joe Chen works with professor Ryan McBride at the 200-kV, 1-MA, 100-ns MAIZE facility at the Plasma, Pulsed Power, and Microwave Laboratory at the NAME building on the University of Michigan North Campus. The Plasma, Pulsed Power, and Microwave Laboratory (PPML) is the center of high energy density plasma and high power microwave research. Driving these experiments are some of the most powerful pulsed power machines at any university. Professor Ryan McBride is a member of the Plasma, Pulsed Power, and Microwave Laboratory (PPML) in NERS. He uses pulsed power technology to generate very fast and very powerful electromagnetic fields. These fields are used to compress matter to extreme states. These extreme states, which include the plasma state, are characterized by material pressures exceeding one million atmospheres, temperatures exceeding one million degrees kelvin, and material densities exceeding solid density. Applications of these experimental capabilities include nuclear fusion, radiation source development (neutron radiation, ion beams, gamma rays, and x-rays), material properties/strength measurements, and laboratory astrophysics experiments (i.e., laboratory experiments that can help us better understand powerful astrophysical phenomena occurring in faraway locations throughout the universe). The electrical pulses generated by pulsed power machines like those found in PPML often consist of voltages on the order of millions of volts, electrical currents on the order of millions of amperes, and electrical powers on the order of terawatts. The duration of these pulses is usually on the order of one billionth of a second to one millionth of a second. Professor McBride is presently conducting research on two pulsed power facilities in PPML: the 200-kV, 1-MA, 100-ns MAIZE facility and the 800-kV, 200-kA, 100-ns BLUE facility. Wednesday, June 7, 2023. Photo by Marcin Szczepanski/Lead Multimedia Storyteller, Michigan Engineering
Prof. Jack Hare and his team from MIT and Cornell recently used UM’s MAIZE facility to study magnetic reconnection with a guide field. The results were recently published in Physics of Plasmas: T. W. O. Varnish, J. Chen, S. Chowdhry, R. Datta, G. V. Dowhan, L. S. Horan IV, N. M. Jordan, E. R. Neill, A. P. Shah, R. Shapovalov, B. J. Sporer, R. D. McBride, and J. D. Hare, “Quadrupolar Density Structures in Driven Magnetic Reconnection Experiments with a Guide Field”, Phys. Plasmas 32, 022118 (2025);
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