UC has directed $8 million in grants to broaden fusion research, including a $550,000 award to UC Santa Cruz's SCIPP to build diamond‑based radiation sensors with Advent Diamond. Synthetic diamonds offer superior heat and radiation tolerance compared with silicon, making them promising for real‑time fusion diagnostics. The project aims to design and test rugged detector prototypes, while researchers stress that coordinated work across academia, national labs and industry is needed to overcome remaining engineering and cost challenges.
UC Awards $550K to Develop Radiation‑Tolerant Diamond Sensors for Fusion Reactors
The University of California has committed $8 million in grants across multiple campuses to expand fusion energy research, including a $550,000 award to the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP) to develop advanced diamond‑based radiation sensors for future fusion reactors.
Researchers say conventional silicon detectors cannot survive the extreme temperatures and high radiation inside experimental and commercial fusion devices. SCIPP has partnered with Advent Diamond to design rugged, real‑time diagnostic sensors made from synthetic diamond that can withstand those harsh conditions.
Why Diamond Sensors?
Synthetic diamonds are prized for exceptional thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and radiation tolerance. These properties make diamond a promising material for particle detectors and real‑time monitoring systems in environments where silicon and other conventional detectors degrade quickly.
Project Goals and Collaboration
The SCIPP team will use the $550,000 grant to design, fabricate, and test diamond‑based detector prototypes suitable for the intense radiation fields in fusion reactors. The collaboration with Advent Diamond aims to combine university research expertise with specialized industrial capabilities to produce practical diagnostics for next‑generation fusion systems.
"Advent is one of the few companies in the world that can do the sort of boutique R&D needed to develop diamond sensors as nuclear particle detectors," said Bruce Schumm, SCIPP faculty member, in a UC Santa Cruz statement.
Schumm added that seed funding from Dean Bryan Gaensler "has at last enabled a collaboration that we have sought to get off the ground for several years now — in a direction that inspired a significant part of our thinking about diagnostics for commercial fusion power plants."
The Bigger Picture
Proponents of fusion energy argue it could provide an abundant, low‑carbon source of power with minimal long‑lived radioactive waste compared with fission. However, fusion remains costly and commercially unproven, and significant engineering challenges must be addressed before reactors can operate reliably at scale.
Simone Mazza, an assistant research scientist at SCIPP, emphasized the role of coordinated funding and partnerships: "Despite significant progress, important questions pertinent to engineering and design challenges remain before fusion energy can successfully transition from the laboratory to a commercially viable power plant. To address these challenges, a coordinated effort is warranted between academia, national laboratories, and industry."
By advancing diagnostics that survive reactor conditions, the SCIPP–Advent Diamond effort seeks to reduce technical risk and help move fusion research closer to practical, commercial deployment.
