A fusion laboratory by the lake

What the centre is for

Fusion is the process that makes the Sun shine, and for decades physicists have been trying to reproduce it on Earth as a source of electricity. The fuel has to be heated until it becomes a plasma, a gas of charged particles, and then held away from every wall by magnetic fields. That is the work of the Swiss Plasma Center. On its own pages the SPC sets itself the aim of advancing the understanding of plasma physics and of driving fusion towards a central role in the energy transition.

The centre is also a school. In 2023 EPFL described it as a team of about 200 researchers, technicians and students, about 50 of them doctoral students, and said that its online course on nuclear fusion had been taken by 45,000 people. The basic principles are explained on A magnetic bottle for a star.

From PPL to SPC

The story starts in 1961, when a Plasma Physics Laboratory, PPL, was set up on the initiative of a Swiss special committee for atomic science. In 1968 it was renamed Centre de recherches en physique des plasmas, CRPP, and became Switzerland’s main laboratory for plasma physics and fusion. In 1973 it became part of EPFL.

In 1978 Switzerland and Euratom, the European Atomic Energy Community, signed a cooperation agreement on fusion research, and from then on the CRPP, together with the Swiss federal administration, represented Switzerland on Euratom’s steering committees. In 1989 the laboratory set up a group for industrial plasmas, and in 1995 it built its first massively parallel computing system for fusion research.

Under the name CRPP the laboratory built the tokamaks TCA and then TCV, and in 1992 it started the SULTAN superconductor test facility at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen. In 2002 the CRPP became a centre of EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences, and in 2003 the TORPEX device for basic plasma physics was added. The CRPP joined the EUROfusion consortium in 2014, and in 2015 it was renamed the Swiss Plasma Center, with a broader set of facilities and activities; the same year the first neutral beam heating system was installed on TCV.

What the centre works on

The SPC organises its work in several research lines. The ones it describes on its research page are:

• the TCV tokamak, with its plasma shaping and electron cyclotron heating, partly in support of ITER and partly exploring other routes to a prototype reactor;
• theory and numerical simulation, which build models to understand, predict and control how plasmas behave;
• low-temperature plasma physics and its applications, from manufacturing to living systems;
• international collaborations: the scientific use of JET, the construction of ITER and the preparation of its experiments, and the design of DEMO;
• superconductivity for fusion magnets, at the SULTAN facility in Villigen.

The less-known lines, from basic plasma physics to superconductors, are described on Beyond the tokamak.

Why a small country runs a tokamak

Large fusion projects such as ITER are built by many countries together, but they rely on smaller machines where ideas can be tried first. TCV is one of these. EUROfusion says that medium-sized tokamaks make experiments possible that could not be done on the large European tokamak JET, complement and confirm its results, and broaden the experimental database. Because TCV can change the shape of its plasma so freely, it is especially suited to questions about confinement, stability and exhaust. According to the SPC’s timeline, in 2013 EUROfusion selected it as one of three national machines in Europe involved in the design of ITER and in the development of DEMO.

The SPC describes its tokamak as the only one of its kind in Switzerland. The centre opens its doors to groups; see Science Travel.

Part of the European fusion programme

Fusion research in Europe is coordinated by EUROfusion, a consortium of national laboratories. The SPC describes it as a collaboration of 30 fusion research organisations and universities in 25 European member states, and describes itself as taking part in the consortium (status as of 3 November 2026).

EUROfusion’s experimental programme uses four medium-sized tokamaks: ASDEX Upgrade in Germany, MAST Upgrade in the United Kingdom, WEST in France and TCV in Lausanne. According to Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), the SPC represents Switzerland in EUROfusion. Switzerland has cooperated with Euratom on fusion since 1979.

Switzerland, ITER and a five-year gap

ITER, the large international fusion experiment being built in southern France, is supplied on the European side by the agency Fusion for Energy (F4E). SERI says that Switzerland took part in ITER through F4E from 2007 and contributed a total of CHF 274.5 million to its construction between 2007 and 2020. Swiss companies and institutions had the chance to supply equipment in areas such as cryogenics, mechanics, power supplies, heating and diagnostics.

From 2021 to the end of 2025 this participation was interrupted, because Switzerland was not associated with the Euratom research programme. During that period the SPC stayed in EUROfusion as an associated partner without voting rights, through Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, with funding from the Swiss government. EPFL later wrote that EUROfusion had ensured the full scientific participation of its Swiss partners throughout this transition.

On 10 November 2025 Switzerland and the European Union signed an agreement on Swiss participation in EU programmes. Under it, association with Horizon Europe and Euratom applies retroactively from 1 January 2025, and since 1 January 2026 Switzerland has again been a member of Fusion for Energy; F4E speaks of a full member taking part in its governance. ITER notes that Swiss nationals can again apply for jobs at ITER and Swiss companies can bid for its contracts (status as of 3 November 2026).

In EPFL’s announcement of January 2026, the SPC’s director Paolo Ricci listed what the centre expects to contribute: the operation of ITER, the design of future fusion devices, materials and components, tritium technologies and advanced diagnostics.