As director of the Swiss Plasma Center at EPFL, Ambrogio Fasoli has turned the TCV tokamak into one of fusion's most versatile research platforms while playing a leading role in charting Europe's path to a fusion power plant.
Switzerland is not the first country that comes to mind in discussions of fusion energy, yet the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has become one of the most influential fusion research institutions in Europe. That transformation owes much to Ambrogio Fasoli, who has served as SPC director since 2012, building the center into a hub for plasma physics research, advanced tokamak operations, and European fusion strategy.
The Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV) is, as its name suggests, a machine designed for flexibility. Its extensive array of independently powered poloidal field coils allows researchers to create an extraordinary range of plasma shapes—from conventional elongated cross-sections to highly triangular, snowflake, and even negative-triangularity configurations.1 Under Fasoli's leadership, TCV has exploited this flexibility to investigate plasma scenarios directly relevant to ITER and DEMO operations.
TCV's experiments on alternative divertor geometries, particularly the snowflake divertor concept, have provided crucial data on how to spread the intense heat loads that will challenge next-generation fusion devices. The machine has also been at the forefront of research into negative-triangularity plasmas, which show improved confinement properties with reduced edge instabilities—a potentially transformative result for reactor design.2
Fasoli's personal research expertise lies in the physics of energetic particles and their interactions with plasma waves—a topic of central importance for burning plasmas, where fusion-born alpha particles must transfer their energy to the bulk plasma efficiently without driving destructive instabilities. His experimental and theoretical work on Alfvén eigenmodes and energetic-particle-driven instabilities has contributed to the understanding of alpha-particle confinement that will be critical for ITER's burning-plasma experiments.3
This research programme has benefited from the Basic Plasma Physics Experiment (TORPEX), a toroidal device at SPC designed specifically to study fundamental plasma processes including turbulence, blob dynamics, and wave-particle interactions in controlled conditions.
Beyond SPC, Fasoli has played an increasingly prominent role in European fusion governance. He has served on the EUROfusion General Assembly and various advisory bodies, contributing to the strategic decisions that shape the continent's fusion roadmap. His advocacy for maintaining a diverse research portfolio—including both tokamaks and stellarators, public and private efforts—has influenced the direction of European fusion policy.4
Fasoli has been a vocal proponent of accelerating the timeline to a demonstration fusion power plant, arguing that the fusion community must adopt a more engineering-oriented and mission-driven approach while maintaining scientific rigor. His perspective reflects a broader shift within European fusion leadership toward treating fusion not merely as a scientific endeavor but as an industrial and energy-policy imperative.5
One of Fasoli's less visible but equally important contributions has been in education and workforce development. SPC's doctoral programme has trained scores of plasma physicists who now work across the European fusion landscape, from EUROfusion laboratories to private fusion companies. The center's integration within EPFL—one of Europe's leading technical universities—provides a pipeline of engineering and physics talent that the fusion sector increasingly needs as it moves from research toward industrial deployment.
As fusion approaches a pivotal decade, Fasoli's combination of scientific depth, institutional leadership, and strategic vision positions the Swiss Plasma Center as a key node in the network that will determine whether European fusion delivers on its promise.