About: Model C stellarator

The Model C stellarator was the first large-scale stellarator to be built, during the early stages of fusion power research. Planned since 1952, construction began in 1961 at what is today the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The Model C followed the table-top sized Model A, and a series of Model B machines that refined the stellarator concept and provided the basis for the Model C, which intended to reach break-even conditions. Model C ultimately failed to reach this goal, producing electron temperatures of 400 eV when about 100,000 were needed. In 1969, after UK researchers confirmed that the USSR's T-3 tokamak was reaching 1000 eV, the Model C was converted to the Symmetrical Tokamak, and stellarator development at PPPL ended.