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Miklos Porkolab
Professor Post Tenure
Former Director, 1995-2015; Principal Investigator, PCI project, Wendelsteing 7-X Stellartor
Physics
617-253-8448
NW16-243

Miklos Porkolab is a Hungarian-American physicist specializing in plasma physics. He obtained his BASc degree at the University of British Columbia in 1963 and then his master's degree and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1964 and 1967 respectively. Thereafter he moved to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where he rose to the rank of Senior Research Physicist by1975 and Lecturer with Rank of Professor at Princeton University during the following two years. in 1976, Porkolab spent a sabbatical year at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, Germany, under the auspices of the Humboldt Foundation as a winner of the "US Senior Scientist Award". In 1977, he was appointed as a full professor in the Physics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he also joined the Plasma Fusion Center, and later became the Director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) from 1995-2015. Between 1991 and 2001, Prof. Porkolab served as Editor of Physics Letters A, in the Plasma Physics and Fluid Dynamics subsection. He also represented the U.S. Plasma Physics community for six years on the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Commission–16 (Plasma Physics) (1991-1997). Between 1992 and 1995, he served as a member of the National Research Council Sub-panel on Plasma Science. In 1999, he served as Chair of the Plasma Physics Division of the American Physical Society. In 2017 he retired from teaching and continued on at MIT as "Professor Post Tenure" and PI of research projects funded by the US Department of Energy.

Awards

• 2016 // External member, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS or MTA)
• 2013 // Hannes Alfvén Prize of the European Physical Society (EPS)
• 2010 // Fusion Power Associates Distinguished Career Award
• 2009 // James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics (APS)
• 2007 // Karoly Simony Memorial Plaque and Prize by the Hungarian Nuclear Society
• 2005 // Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• 1984 // John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Research (APS)
• 1976 // US Senior Scientist Humboldt Prize, West German Government
• 1975 // Fellow, American Physical Society (APS)
• 1963 // Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, Stanford University

While at Stanford university in the 1960s, Porkolab carried out experimental measurements of the dipersive properties of electrostatic ion cyclotron waves, measured and verified Bohm diffusion by injecting turbulence in Q machine plasmas, and studied fluctuations that were later related to the ITG (ion temperature gradient ) instability (M. Porkolab, PhD Thesis, Department of Applied Physics, 1967). After graduation he joined the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory as a Research Associate. While at Princeton, Porkolab and graduate students studied the dispersive properties of plasma waves and instabilities in magnetized plasmas. Measurements corroborated the validity of the collisionless Boltzmann equation and demonstrated the nonlinear scattering of Bernstein waves with wavelengths comparable to the electron Larmor radius. Porkolab's work provided experimental verifications of Landau damping, nonlinear resonant wave-wave scattering and parametric instabilities, while also predicting the evolution of upper hybrid solitons while visiting the University of Colorado in Boulder.
From 1976, he joined the experiments on lower hybrid current drive in the ATC tokamak where he he was the first to measure the role of Parametric Decay Instabilities in the etokamak edge plasma, later invoking it as the cause of the density "limit" for LH wave penetration of dense palsmas. After joining MIT in 1977 as a full professor, he proposed the lower hybrid current drive program on the Versator II tokamak, and later proposed and led a successful MW level lower hybrid current drive program on the Alcator-C tokamak. He also carried out investigations on ion cyclotron heating and mode conversion processes in multi-ion species fusion plasmas using Phase-Contrast Imaging (PCI) diagnostic which was developed by Porkolab's group for use at the Alcator C-Mod tokamak and the DIII-D tokamak of General Atomics in San Diego, and more recently on the Wendelstain 7-X stellarator in Germany. Very recently, PCI measurements in W7-X played a key role to demonstrate the role of turbulence in the anomalous transport of energy and ion temperature clamping due to ITG modes.

Articles in Books:

  1. Porkolab, in "Radio Frequency Heating of Magnetically Confined Plasma", Chapter 13 in Fusion, Ed. Edward Teller, Academic Press, New York, 1981, Vo. 1B, pp. 151-191.
  2. Porkolab, in "Current Drive in Plasmas," Eds., V.L. Granatstein and P.L. Colestock, Gordon and Break Science Publishers, New York, 1985, pp. 219-280.
  3. Porkolab, in "Plasma Heating by Fast Magnetosonic Waves in Tokamaks," in Advances in Plasma Physics, Thomas H. Stix Symposium, Ed., N.J. Fisch, Princeton, NJ, 1992 AIP Conference Proc. 314, pp. 99-127.
  4. Porkolab, in "Radio Frequency Waves, Heating and Current Drive in Magnetically   Confined Plasmas," Chapter 6, Fusion Physics, Eds. M.Kikuchi, K. Lackner, and M.            Q. Tran,  IAEA, Vienna, STI/PUB/1562, September, 2012, pp.609-755.

 

Refereed publications:

  1. "Plasma Instabilities Due to Ion Temperature Gradients", Miklos Porkolab, Nucl. Fusion 8, 29-36 (1968).
  2. "Turbulent Diffusion Experiments in a Thermal Plasma", M. Porkolab and G.S. Kino, Phys. Fluids 11, 36 (1968).
  3. "Excitation of Lower-Hybrid Waves by a Slow-Wave Structure" P. Bellan and M. Porkolab, Phys. Rev.Lett. 34, 124 (1975).
  4. "Observation of Parametric Instabilities in Lower Hybrid Radio Frequency Heating of Tokamaks", M.Porkolab, S.    Bernabei, W.M. Hooke, et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 38, 230 (1977).
  5. "Parametric Instabilities Due to Lower-Hybrid Radio Frequency Heating of Tokamak Plasmas", M. Porkolab, Phys. Fluids 20, 2058 (1977).
  6. "Parametric Processes in magnetically Confined CTR Plasmas: Review Paper", M. Porkolab, Nucl. Fusion 18, 367 (1978).
  7. "Nonlinear Wave Effects in Laboratory Plasmas: A Comparison Between Theory and Experiment", M. Porkolab and R.P.H. Chang, Reviews of Modern Phys. 50, 745 (1978).
  8. "High-Power Electron Landau-Heating Experiments in the Lower Hybrid Frequency Range in a Tokamak Plasma", M. Porkolab, B. Lloyd, Y. Takase et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 53, 1229 (1984).
  9. "Observations of Lower-Hybrid Current Drive at High Densities in the Alcator C Tokamak", M. Porkolab, J.J. Schuss, B. Lloyd et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 53, 450 (1984).
  10. "Nonlinear Landau Heating by Ion-Bernstein Waves in Magnetically Confined Fusion Plasmas", M. Porkolab, Phys. Rev. Lett. 54, 434 (1985).
  11. "Parametric Instabilities Associated with Intense Electron Cyclotron Heating in the MTX Tokamak," Porkolab and B.I. Cohen, Nucl. Fusion 28, 239 (1988).
  12. "A Phase Contrast Interferometer on DIII-D," S. Coda, M. Porkolab, T.N. Carlstrom, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 10, pt.2, 4974 (1992).
  13. "Negative Magnetic Shear Modes of Operation in the Alcator C-Mod Tokamak near the Beta Limit," P.T. Bonoli, M. Porkolab, J.J. Ramos, W. Nevins, C. Kessel, Plasma Phys. and Contr. Fusion 39, 223 (1997).
  14. "Decorrelation of Edge Plasma Turbulence at the Transition from Low to High-Confinement Mode in the DIII-D Tokamak," S. Coda, M. Porkolab, K.H. Burrell, Physics Letters A, 273, 125 (2000).
  15. "Signature of Turbulent Zonal flows observed in the DIII-D Tokamak," S. Coda, K.H. Burrell, M. Porkolab, Physical Review Letters, 86, 4835 (2001).
  16. "Experimental Observations of Mode-Converted Ion Cyclotron Waves in a Tokamak Plasma by Phase Contrast Imaging," E. Nelson-Melby, M. Porkolab P.T. Bonoli, et al., Phys. Revi. Letters, 90,155004 (2003).
  17. "Phase Contrast Imaging of Waves and Instabilities in High Temperature Magnetized Fusion Plasmas," Porkolab et al, IEEE Trans. on Plasma Science, 34, 229 (2006).
  18. "Laboratory Observation of Electron Phase-Space Holes during Magnetic Reconnection," W. Fox, M. Porkolab, J. Egedal, N. Katz, and A. Le, Phys. Rev. Lett., 101, 255003 (2008).
  19. "Observation of Reversed Shear Alfven Eigenmodes between Sawtooth Crashes in the Alcator C-Mod Tokamak," E.M. Edlund, M. Porkolab, G.J. Kramer, et al, Physical Review Letters 102, 165003 (2009).
  20. "Validation of full-wave simulations for mode-conversion of waves in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies with Phase Contrast Imaging in Alcator C-Mod", N. Tsujii, M. Porkolab, P. T. Bonoli, et al, Physics of Plasmas, 22, 082502 (2015).
  21. "A Phase Contrast imaging-interferometer system for detections of multiscale electron density fluctuations on DIII-D", E. M. Davis, J. C. Rost, M. Porkolab, et al, Review of Scientific Instruments, 87, 11ER117 (2016).
  22. "Efficient generation of energetic ions in multi-ion plasmas by radio-frequency heating, Ye. O. Kazakov, J. Ongena, ....M. Porkolab, et al, Nature Physics, 13, 973, 2017.
  23. "Development of a synthetic phase contrast imaging diagnostic for turbulence studies at Wendelstein 7-X", S.K. Hansen, M. Porkolab, J. P. Baehner, et al, Plasma Physics and controlled Fusion, 64, 095011, (2022).
  24. "First high-power helicon results from DIII-D", R. I. Pinsker, B. Van Compernolle,....M. Porkolab, et al, Nuclear Fusion 64, 126058 (2024).
  25. Characterizing core and edge turbulence regimes with fluctuating imaging diagnostics in Wendelstein 7-X, A. von Stechow, S. G. Baek, ......M. Porkolab et al, Nuclear Fusion 66, 046014 (2026).

 

"Worldwide Progress in Nuclear Fusion Energy" , Michigan Engineering, 5/16/2013;

"Nancy Pelosi visits the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center", MIT News, 11/2013