Peter Stott became interested in fusion energy whilst still an undergraduate student in 1962 and did his PhD in theoretical and experimental plasma physics working between Manchester University and the Harwell and Culham Laboratories. He joined the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Culham Laboratory in 1966 and has spent his professional career as an experimental physicist working on magnetic confinement fusion.
After several years working on lower temperature plasma experiments, he moved into tokamak research in 1970. In 1973-5 he spent 18 months at the Plasma Physics Laboratory of Princeton University, USA working on the ATC tokamak. He has pursued a wide range of interests in the tokamak field including: the first applications of neutral beam injection heating, development of the control of impurities by gettering and by divertors, plasma boundary physics, plasma confinement and plasma diagnostics.
In 1979 he joined the JET Joint Undertaking to take charge of the design and construction of the plasma diagnostics systems and from 1982 to 1999 he was Head of JET’s Experimental Division 1. From 1989 to 1999 he was coordinator for the European contribution to the design of diagnostics for the ITER project and was a member of the International Advisory Group. He left JET in 1999 to move to the Département des Recherches sur la Fusion Contrôlée, Cadarache, France.
He has published over 200 scientific papers and has edited six books on plasma diagnostics and co-authored two on fusion energy. He has a keen interest in scientific publishing: being Honorary Editor of the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion from 1991 to 2000 and a member of its International Advisory Panel since 2000; a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Nuclear Fusion from 1987 to 1994; and Series Editor of the Institute of Physics Series of Books in Plasma Physics since 1995. He has been Director of the regular series of Courses and Workshops in Plasma Diagnostics.
