The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an entity that belongs to the United Nations and is the world’s central intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the nuclear field. It works for the safe, secure and peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology, contributing to international peace and security and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Every two years the IAEA holds the Fusion Energy Conference (FEC 2018); this year it will take place in Ahmedabad, India; and for this event the IAEA has selected the 28 best fusion nuclear scientist in the world; among them there is only one Latin American, Costa Rican Ivan Vargas.

“This is an achievement for the country. An achievement for the Costa Rican Technology Institute; an achievement for all those that have worked in this field of investigation in Costa Rica”, expressed the scientist who is a doctor in plasma physics and nuclear fusion.

The investigation in nuclear fusion has the objective of creating a new source of renewable energy, safe, clean and environmentally sustainable, through the use of hydrogen(t he most abundant element in the planet), instead of radioactive materials such as the conventional nuclear fusion reactors.

Ivan Vargas and his group of researchers managed the first high temperature plasma discharge in a Stellaraton device.

Vargas received in 2016 the Technology Award by the Costa Rica’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications, for his “Design, construction and implementation of a small modular Stellaraton named SCR-1 for the magnetic confinement of plasma as a future source of energy”.