Institute for Plasma Research, an autonomous Physics research institute, is situated by the
Sabarmati river. It is about 5 km from
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, and 14 km from
Ahmedabad Junction Railway Station.
Research in various aspects of plasma science including basic plasma physics, magnetically confined hot plasmas and plasma technologies for industrial applications are carried out in the institute. The designing and development of the first tokamak of India, Aditya, was done by this institute. After the commissioning of Aditya in 1989, it concentrated on experiments with tokamak. The institute came under the control of the Department of Atomic Energy in 1995, and started research in second generation superconducting steady state tokamak SST-1.
The institute has a scientific and engineering manpower of 200 with core competency in theoretical plasma physics, computer modeling, superconducting magnets and cryogenics, ultra high vacuum, pulsed power, microwave and RF, computer-based control and data acquisition and industrial, environmental and strategic plasma applications.
The institute houses a computer center and a library. A wide collection of books on Plasma Physics, Fusion Technology, General Physics, Mathematics, Nonlinear Science, Simulation Methods, Cryogenics and all other branches of engineering are found in the library. The computer center of the institute engages in software development on both Windows and Linux platforms. The institute also organizes seminars and lectures on various subjects.
