SPACE TECHNOLOGY Black hole simulators and particle accelerators backed by power electronics

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The popularity of power electronics revolves only around electricity distribution facilities, industries, factories, the grid, renewable energy plants, electric vehicles, and many more. Little does anyone know that power electronics function as the backbone of black hole simulators, particle accelerators, and fusion reactors. The article describes the role of power electronics in high-tech research facilities.

Power electronics play a foundational role in high-tech research facilities through power conversion, control, delivery, and management. Facilities that implement physical infrastructure for research, for example, particle accelerators, need large amounts of power to support chemical reactions. On the other hand, digital research facilities require large-scale power delivery and management for computing.

Power Electronics x Research Facilities: Use Cases

Research facilities contract power electronic companies to build large-scale in-house power supply systems, converter units, and switching networks for their accelerators. Power companies ensure multi-stage deployment of power electronic systems, following industrial safety standards. The overall power electronics system should be so efficient that researchers, usually non-power electronics specialists, must be able to handle gigawatt-scale transient power. The section lists some power electronics use cases in research facilities.

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Terrestrial black hole simulators

Black hole simulators are software that generate virtual black hole-like conditions. Black holes, as seen in the movie “Interstellar”— are the infinitesimal points of heavy mass in space, something that even light cannot escape from. Terrestrial black hole simulations include high-tech software in combination with some physics-based experiments to mimic the accretion disk of a black hole. Various universities and research institutes generate black hole-like conditions in laboratories through the approximation between black holes and optics in dielectric media. These experiments are heavily dependent upon electronics, acoustics, and piezoelectricity.

Black hole simulators rely on real-time black hole data from telescopes or satellites. In addition to using space-grade semiconductors in satellites and telescopes, NASA carries out these computer experiments. In fact, NASA released the closest image of a black hole in 2019. Such black hole images are not captured by cameras but are constructed using radio wave signals. Supercomputers need high computational power to run such simulations. Power electronics are used to build efficient power delivery and management networks for cryogenic supercomputers and advanced AI-based GPUs.

Particle accelerators

A particle accelerator is a large-scale machine that uses electromagnetic fields to accelerate sub-atomic and bosonic particles. These particles are accelerated at a very high speed for particle research and quantum physics. As particle accelerators rely on electromagnetic fields, their components and systems need a high amount of current in the order of kilo amperes and radio frequencies up to 3000 MHz!

Particle accelerators deploy a large number of high-power converters in each subsystem. The total number of power converters depends on the size of the particle accelerator. Such high-power converters rely on advanced control algorithms and current measurement systems. For example, one of the most popular particle accelerators– the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland-houses 1614 power circuits, 1708 power converters, and 9994 power magnets!

Fusion reactors

Tokamak is a powerful magnetic fusion machine that uses large amounts of magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of an axially symmetrical torus (a donut-shaped structure). Only 50 countries have such machines and house such research facilities. Surprisingly, nuclear fusion is “greener” than traditional nuclear power. The traditional nuclear-fission-based power results in chain reactions and hazardous toxicity. Once commercialized, nuclear fusion power plants will use heat to generate electricity.

A very high voltage is required to switch the plasma current. Researchers at Princeton University are developing pulsed-power systems to ignite plasma. Fusion reactors contain a series of superconducting solenoid coils to carry on the process. An advanced control system, known as SPARC, is currently in development to reach a desirable fusion energy gain factor (Q > 1). Examples include JT-60SA in Japan, DIII-D in the USA, HT-7U (EAST) in China, and ITER in France.

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Digital research facilities

Data centers and some high-tech research facilities rely on data, rather than physical experiments, to perform complex calculations. They use either large numbers of computers or advanced computers such as quantum computers and supercomputers. As a result, net power expenditure increases even more due to the maintenance of the cryogenic environment.

Some special laboratories and data centers tend to rely on AI chips for large-scale computations. They do not rely on cryogenic environments. However, increased use of AI chips, processors, and accelerators consumes a lot of power. At present, a single NVIDIA GPU chip draws 5.4 KW of power. In the near future, AI chips are expected to draw 3x the current power consumption. Such a scenario would push power stations and the grid, skyrocketing power budgets.

Conclusion

Contrary to popular belief, power electronics are the backbone of all research facilities. Power electronics use is not just limited to electricity used in our homes and commercial spaces. In fact, the world relies on the billion-dollar power electronics industry for power supply, conversion, management, and much more. The job of power electronics continues forever. After all, the digital world does not exist without power.

References

• https://psatellite.com/technology/power-electronics-development-for-plasma-and-nuclear-fusion-systems/

• https://phys.org/news/2022-08-magnetic-electric-fields-emulate-black.html#:~:text=In%20their%20paper%20published%20in,the%20development%20of%20accretion%20disks.

• https://www.mdpi.com/2218-1997/9/4/162

• https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pop/article/30/9/090601/2909870/SPARC-as-a-platform-to-advance-tokamak-science

• https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.01595

• https://lhc-commissioning.web.cern.ch/systems/power-converters/PowerCircuits.htm

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