Fourier transform profilometry (FTP) allows one to capture a two-dimensional height map of the water surface. A predefined spatially periodic pattern is projected onto the surface. Any perturbation of the surface height leads to a phase shift of this known periodic pattern at the position of the perturbation, which can be used to reconstruct the surface height. A projector and a camera are mounted above the central water basin. The water is dyed opaque white with titanium oxide to enhance the diffuse reflectivity
of the water. Such a system will be developed to measure the surface of a water tornado and to study its dynamics. 

The project is part of the SWADEX project. 

If you are interested, please contact Mr. Haag.

Capacitively coupled radio frequency discharges with electronegative gases are applied in industrial processes for treatment of material surfaces. They are also known to exhibit instabilities for certain domains of gas pressure, radio frequency power, and electronegative gas chemistry. Although it is known that the instabilities have their origin in attachment induced ionization instabilities, the cause and mechanisms are still unclear. We want to contribute with the measurement of phase resolved temperature and density measurements. To this end a Langmuir probe, a microwave interferometer and laser detachment will be used. It will be your task to use these diagnostics, evaluate the data, try new techniques and figure out if new insights can be derived. 

If you are interested please contact Dr. Stefan Knauer

Turbulent transport is of central importance for magnetically confined plasmas. In current experiments, other species are in fact usually only present as impurities. Often, however, only one ion species is considered, a hydrogen isotope. In deuterium-tritium fusion, however, we would already have two species of slightly different masses; for boron-hydrogen fusion, the mass differences are significant. There are considerations to use magnetized plasmas for mass separation. Intuitively, one would think that turbulence would lead to mixing, but this may not be as trivial as it sounds. In this work, the mixing properties of multicomponent plasmas in drift wave turbulence will be investigated using numerical simulations. 
If you are interested, please contact Prof. Manz

Turbulence is often intermittent. However, there are different properties that are referred to as intermittency. Thus there is an ongoing debate about its exact measurement. In plasma physics the skewness and kurtosis are used to quantify intermittency. But there are more: the structure-function analysis, the van Milligen parameter, the ratio of pulse duration and averaged waiting time and lifetime analysis... All these can display different aspects of intermittency. This work will discuss different scenarios at the linear plasma device PANTA based on the calculated values. It will be your task to develop methods to calculate the turbulence characteristics. You will use already existing data from a 64Channel radial probe array.

If you are interested please contact Dr. Stefan Knauer

A recent study suggests that external edge ExB flow shear can sustain the plasma at high density to avoid the disruption at high densities. In the GOLEM tokamak the line-averaged density and the plasma current can be measured, hence the Greenwald fraction. With experiments at different biasing voltages of the biasing electrode, it can be investigated whether the Greenwald density can be exceeded with biasing or at least higher Greenwald fractions can be obtained. 

Plasma turbulence at the edge of a magnetically confined plasma is in competition of two instabilities the drift wave and the exchange instability. Here we will investigate how the resistivity of the plasma affects modal and non-modal properties.

This is a theoretical work. Good mathematical understanding and basic programming skills and would be important. Prior knowledge of plasma physics is not needed.

If you are interested, please contact Prof. Manz.

Nothing for you? If you want to join, we will definitely find something that suits you