A tokamak (Russian: Токамáк) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine a hot plasma in

the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being developed
to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. As of 2016, it is the leading candidate for a
practical fusion reactor.
Etymology
The word tokamak is a transliteration of the Russian word токамак, an acronym of either:
 "тороидальная камера с магнитными катушками" (toroidal'naya kamera s magnitnymi katushkami)
— toroidal chamber with magnetic coils;
 "тороидальная камера с аксиальным магнитным полем" (toroidal'naya kamera s aksial'nym
magnitnym polem) — toroidal chamber with axial magnetic field.[3]
The term was created in 1957 by Igor Golovin,[4][a] the vice-director of the Laboratory of Measuring
Apparatus of Academy of Science, today's Kurchatov Institute. A similar term, "tokamag", was also
proposed for a time.

Setup
Tokamak is a toroidal vacuum chamber on which coils are wound to create a toroidal magnetic field. From
the vacuum chamber, air is first pumped out, and then filled with a mixture of deuterium and tritium. Then,
with the help of an inductor in the chamber, a vortex electric field is created. The electric field causes
current to flow and ignition in the plasma chamber.

The current flowing through the plasma performs two tasks:

 It heats the plasma in the same way as any other conductor would (ohmic heating);
 It creates a magnetic field around itself. This magnetic field is called poloidal (that is, directed along the
lines passing through the poles of the spherical coordinate system).

The presence of a poloidal field is necessary for stable plasma retention in such a system. Since it is created
by increasing the current in the inductor which can not be infinite, the time of stable existence of the plasma
in the classical tokamak is limited to a few seconds.
In addition to toroidal coils, additional poloidal field coils are needed to control the plasma cord. They are
circular coils around the vertical axis of the tokamak chamber.
Heating alone due to the flow of current is not enough to heat the plasma to the temperature necessary for
the thermonuclear reaction. For additional heating, microwave radiation is used at so-called resonant
frequencies (for example, coinciding with the cyclotron frequency of either electrons or ions) or injection of
fast neutral atoms.
Plasma heating
In an operating fusion reactor, part of the energy generated will serve to maintain the plasma temperature as
fresh deuterium and tritium are introduced. However, in the startup of a reactor, either initially or after a
temporary shutdown, the plasma will have to be heated to its operating temperature of greater than 10 keV
(over 100 million degrees Celsius).
Ohmic heating ~ inductive mode(a light bulb; less effective with temperature)
Since the plasma is an electrical conductor, it is possible to heat the plasma by inducing a current through it;
The heating caused by the induced current is called ohmic (or resistive) heating; it is the same kind of
heating that occurs in an electric light bulb or in an electric heater. It appears that the maximum plasma
temperature attainable by ohmic heating in a tokamak is 20-30 million degrees Celsius. To obtain still higher
temperatures, additional heating methods must be used.
Magnetic compression
A gas can be heated by sudden compression. In the same way, the temperature of a plasma is increased if it
is compressed rapidly by increasing the confining magnetic field. In a tokamak, this compression is achieved
simply by moving the plasma into a region of higher magnetic field. Since plasma compression brings the
ions closer together, the process has the additional benefit of facilitating attainment of the required density
for a fusion reactor.
Neutral-beam injection
Neutral-beam injection involves the introduction of high energy (rapidly moving) atoms or molecules into
an ohmically heated, magnetically confined plasma within the tokamak.
Once the neutral beam enters the tokamak, interactions with the main plasma ions occur. This has two
effects. One is that the injected atoms re-ionize and become charged, thereby becoming trapped inside the
reactor and adding to the fuel mass. The other is that the process of being ionized occurs through impacts
with the rest of the fuel, and these impacts deposit energy in that fuel, heating it.
Radio-frequency heating
High-frequency electromagnetic waves are generated by oscillators outside the torus. If the waves have the
correct frequency (or wavelength) and polarization, their energy can be transferred to the charged particles
in the plasma, which in turn collide with other plasma particles, thus increasing the temperature of the bulk
plasma.