The Italian-American MIT physicist who pioneered the high-field compact tokamak approach with the Alcator series and proposed the IGNITOR experiment — arguing that fusion could be achieved in smaller, cheaper devices.
Bruno Coppi (born 1935, Italy) is a professor of physics at MIT. He conceived the Alcator program — “ALto CAmpo TORo” (High Field Torus) — arguing that compact devices with very strong magnetic fields could achieve fusion-relevant plasma conditions at a fraction of the cost of larger machines.[1]
Coppi designed IGNITOR, a compact tokamak (major radius 1.32 m, 13 T toroidal field) intended to achieve ignition without external heating. The project was supported by an Italian-Russian government agreement but has faced repeated funding and political delays. As of 2026 it remains unbuilt.[2]
Coppi has made significant contributions to plasma instability theory, including analyses of micro-tearing modes, collisionless reconnection, and the physics of ignited plasmas. He has argued consistently that fusion can be achieved with present-day physics understanding in compact devices.[3]