We kindly invite all interested members of the scientific and engineering community to participate in the Fourth IFMIF-DONES Users Workshop.
The workshop will be held as an in-person event in Madrid, Spain on October 13-15, 2026 at the CIEMAT research center, organized jointly by esDONES and CIEMAT.
As the construction of the DONES facility progresses, the objective of this DONES User´s Workshop is to review the research areas of DONES, discuss and further detail the experimental programme and consolidate the users community. In particular, the leading motive of the Fourth Workshop will be to propose key-experiments that could profit from the already proposed extensions of DONES baseline associated with its experimental capabilities, in particular, the addition of the second accelerator, post irradiation examination facilities, TOF-DONES facility, collimated neutron beam facility.
One of the main roles for the DONES Users Community is to establish a stable link of communication between the DONES engineering activities and the future users. This is to ensure that requirements coming from the proposed experiments are properly evaluated in terms of technical feasibility, ease of implementation and available budget and factored in during the construction phase of the facility.
Areas of scientific interest / sessions of the workshop:
- Qualification of materials for the fusion programme, DEMO and fusion power plant
- Tritium breeding technologies: validation at DONES
Tritium breeding technologies are a key enabling element for fusion reactors, ensuring fuel self-sufficiency through breeding blanket systems. This session will address how IFMIF-DONES can support the pre-qualification of breeding blanket concepts by investigating the behavior of breeder materials under irradiation, their interaction with neutron multipliers, tritium generation, transport, retention, and release under fusion reactor relevant conditions. - Studies of functional materials and other fusion technologies
Diagnostics and plasma heating of fusion reactors rely on optical and electrical properties of functional materials. Functional materials used in In-Vessel components encompass electrical insulators for sensors, active materials of sensors, electrical insulators of liquid-metal channel inserts, windows (plasma heating), mirrors, optical fibers. Superconducting coils service shielded by the blanket, but still receive neutron fluences that can be detrimental for their function. The session aims at exploring the application-relevant (DEMO and beyond) irradiation conditions, operation environment and physical properties of candidate functional materials, and corresponding irradiation capabilities in IFMIF-DONES. - Nuclear physics: TOF-DONES facility and other experiments
- Industrial neutron irradiations and societal applications
- Life sciences and medical applications
- Experiments for benchmarking of computational materials science
- Experiments during the commissioning phase of DONES
- Discussion of the DONES experimental programme proposal
A working group representing all DONES stakeholders has been established to prepare a proposal of the DONES Exerimental Programme. In this session the principles for the definition of the Programme, planning of irradiation campaigns, handling of different experimental areas and possible upgrades will be presented. A preliminary draft of the Experimental Progamme will be proposed and discussed. - Next steps for the DONES users community and selection of the Users Committee members
The program of the sessions will be composed of a small number of introductory key-note talks and several presentations selected based on submitted abstracts. We kindly invite you to send abstracts and contribute to the workshop. Participation of young researchers is encouraged.
Deadline for submission of abstracts is 15 June 2026.
The authors of talks selected for presentation will be notified by 30 June 2026.
The participants will be asked for a 170 Euro registration fee to cover the cost of lunches at CIEMAT, a workshop dinner and coffee breaks. The registration will open on 1 June 2026.
Early registration and payment deadline is 30 September 2026.
Please register as a member of the DONES users community if you wish to receive updates on the DONES Users workshop.
We are looking forward to your contributions and participation.
