Nikolas C. Logan

Research Scientist

As a fusion energy sciences researcher who works on many national-scale experimental user facilities across the world, Dr. Logan is always looking to perform impactful research that will facilitate the advent of a magnetic-confinement fusion reactor.

Dr. Logan’s personal research is defined by a through-line of optimizing the various consequences of breaking a tokamak’s axisymmetry (tokamaks are torus-shaped devices with nominal symmetry in the toroidal direction). His early work at Princeton included developing a new model of neoclassical toroidal viscosity (NTV) induced by non-axisymmetric perturbations, using predictive MHD modeling to optimize magnetic perturbation diagnostics, installing said diagnostics on the DIII-D tokamak, and leading experiments to validate the model predictions with these diagnostics. Since then, his research has expanded to encompass a wide range of experimental efforts studying resonant magnetic perturbation, stability and transport in major tokamak facilities such as EAST (China), KSTAR (Korea) and DIII-D (USA).

Logan also continues to develop and maintain the Generalized Perturbed Equilibrium Code (GPEC) MHD model used by 30+ researchers at 8+ laboratories as well as the OMFIT profile fitting tool used to analyze diagnostic data at 17+ fusion centers across the world. He continues to balance model development and experimental work to maximize his impact in the field of fusion energy sciences.