Lead author TC Luce, along with contributing authors including General Atomic's J.R. Ferron, M. R. Wade, A.W. Hyatt, A.G. Kellman, R.J. La Haye, P.A. Politzer and J.T. Scoville; Oak Ridge National Laboratory's M. R. Wade and M. Murakami; J. E. Kinsey of Lehigh University; and C. J. Lasnier of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, were awarded the prestigious prize for their paper 'Stationary high-performance discharges in the DIII-D tokamak' (Nuclear Fusion 43 (5), pp. 321 - 329).
The paper outlines a tokamak scenario that can maintain high fusion performance at reduced plasma current (compared with the conventional tokamak operational scenario), thereby lessening the potential for structural damage in the event of a major disruption. Projections in the paper show that realization of this scenario in ITER could lead to fusion performance at or above an energy gain of 10 for longer duration with reduced risk.
As a service to the nuclear fusion research community, the winning paper will be freely available to read online until December 31, 2006 at http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0029-5515/43/5/304 until December 31.
Founded in 1960 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Nuclear Fusion has, during the five decades since its first issue, provided a first-class forum for sharing research results. It is a leading journal in the field of nuclear fusion research and is ranked by ISI(r) as the top research journal in the area of fluids and plasmas with an Impact Factor of 3.418.
Since 2002, the journal has been published jointly by the IAEA and Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP). This partnership combines IOP's publishing expertise with IAEA's outstanding peer review and dedicated author services. Today, the journal continues its tradition as a leading voice of the worldwide fusion community while offering the most up to date electronic services.
This is the first year the IAEA has awarded an annual prize to honor exceptional work published in the journal Nuclear Fusion. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency has generously made a contribution of $2,500 to the prize.
Each year, a shortlist of ten papers will be nominated for the Nuclear Fusion Award. These will be papers of the highest scientific standard, published in the journal volume from two years previous to the award year. Nominations will be based on citation record and recommendation by the Board of Editors. The Board will vote by secret ballot to determine which of these papers has made the largest scientific impact.
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