Associate professor
kristel.crombe@ugent.be
Kristel Crombé obtained the master degree in Engineering Physics in 2001 and the PhD degree in 2005, both from Ghent University. Her doctoral work concerned spectroscopic methods for diagnosing impurity ion dynamics in plasmas. During this period, she worked on the TEXTOR tokamak at the Institut für Energie- und Klimaforschung Plasmaphysik (http://www.fz-juelich.de, FZJ) in Jülich (Germany), and the JET tokamak at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (http://www.ccfe.ac.uk) in Oxfordshire (UK). In 2006, she was awarded the European Physical Society Plasma Physics Division PhD Research Award for an Outstanding Doctoral Thesis.
After obtaining the PhD, Kristel continued working at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy for further development of the edge charge exchange recombination spectroscopy systems on the JET tokamak. The measurements of the ion temperature and rotation velocity profiles contributed to many experiments. In particular, studies of the radial electric field profiles in different operational conditions were performed and their role was clarified in suppression of turbulent eddies and the creation of transport barriers.
Since 2009, Kristel's main affiliation is with the Laboratory for Plasma Physics of the Royal Military Academy in Brussels (LPP-ERM/KMS). Presently, her research focuses on edge plasma-wave interactions and on radio frequency antennas for plasma heating. It consists of numerical modelling and experimental aspects. During the period 2014 - 2019 she led a project at the Max Planck Institut für Plasmaphysik in Garching, Germany. It consisted of a linear plasma device equipped with a helicon plasma source, an RF antenna, and various diagnostics. It was focused on the investigation of RF sheaths caused by ion cyclotron antennas and the development of plasma diagnostics. Several PhD and master theses were integrated into the project.
In 2013, Kristel was appointed as a part-time Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Physics at UGent. In 2019, she became an Associate Professor.
Since 2020, Kristel's research is concentrated on the preparation of the ICRH antenna for the stellarator W7-X, including the installation and commissioning of the system and preparations for future RF experiments. Special attention is given to the coordination of diagnostics and calculations of the heat loads on the antenna components for the different magnetic configurations. Since 2021 she also leads the TOMAS project at FZJ in Jülich. The research on the TOMAS device is focused on the development of various wall conditioning techniques, including methods based on ion- and electron-cyclotron (IC / EC) range of frequency plasmas, and to complement plasma-wall interaction research in tokamaks and stellarators. TOMAS being the "hands-on" machine has become an excellent training ground for students and young researchers to obtain necessary skills and experience in experimental physics.
In 2022, Kristel was elected as Chair of the Plasma Physics Division of the European Physical Society.