Jack Davies Hare

Fundamental Plasma Physics Experiments

I study plasmas, the hot matter which make up most of the universe. I am an experimental physicist, so I like being in the lab, looking at data, and saying “huh, that’s odd.” I mostly study high-energy-density-plasmas, which are hot, dense plasmas, in contrast to magnetically confined plasmas, which are hot and sparse, and industrial plasmas, which are often cold and dense.

In particular, I create plasmas using intense electrical currents (around 1 MA), which heat initially solid materials to the plasma state. This processes also generates very large magnetic fields (10s T or more) which accelerate the plasmas to high speeds (100s km/s). These hot, dense, magnetised plasmas are ideal for testing fundamental processes in plasma physics.

I’m an assistant professor at the Nuclear Science and Engineering Department at MIT, where I’m developing a new pulsed-power generator, PUFFIN, for producing high-energy-density plasmas. In January 2025, I'll be moving my group (and PUFFIN!) to the Cornell School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Previously I worked as a graduate student and post doc at the MAGPIE pulsed power generator at Imperial College London.