The Maryland Centrifugal eXperiment (MCX) Group is part of the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics. IREAP has participating researchers from the Departments of Physics, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Geology, Materials Science and Engineering, and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland.

The Maryland Centrifugal eXperiment was conceived to test the idea of centrifugal confinement of plasmas for controlled thermonuclear fusion. Centrifugal forces from supersonic plasma rotation can be used to augment magnetic confinement of plasmas. When optimized, this "knob" results in a device that features several advantages over conventional approaches. The idea rests on two prongs: first, centrifugal forces can be used to contain plasmas to desired regions of appropriately shaped magnetic fields; second, the accompanying large velocity shear can stabilize MHD instabilities.

The experiment is housed in the the Energy Research Facility, Bldg. 223, Room 0105. For further information, please contact Rick Ellis, Adil Hassam, or Carlos Romero-Talamás.