A neoclassically optimized compact stellarator with simple coils has been designed. The magnetic field of the new stellarator is generated by only four planar coils including two interlocking coils of elliptical shape and two circular poloidal field coils. The interlocking coil topology is the same as that of the Columbia Non-neutral Torus (CNT) [Pedersen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 205002 (2002)]. The new configuration was obtained by minimizing the effective helical ripple directly via the shape of the two interlocking coils. The optimized compact stellarator has very low effective ripple in the plasma core, implying excellent neoclassical confinement. This is confirmed by the results of the drift-kinetic code SFINCS [Landreman et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 042503 (2014)], showing that the particle diffusion coefficient of the new configuration is one order of magnitude lower than CNT's.

An optimized compact stellarator with four simple coils is obtained from direct optimization via a coil shape. The new stellarator consists of two interlocking coils and two vertical field coils similar to those of the Columbia Non-neutral Torus (CNT) (Pedersen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 88, 2002, pp. 205002). The optimized configuration has a global magnetic well and a low helical ripple level comparable to that of Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) (Wolf et al., Nucl. Fusion, vol. 57, 2017, pp. 102020). The two interlocking coils have a smooth three-dimensional shape much simpler than those of advanced stellarators such as W7-X. This result opens up possibilities of future stellarator reactors with simplified coils.

A new linked mirror device for magnetic confinement experiments is proposed. The new linked mirror device consists of two straight magnetic mirrors connected by two half-torus. The structure of the configuration as a whole is three dimensional because the two linear mirror sections are not parallel. The angle between the two mirror sections generates rotational transform which results in good magnetic confinement of toroidally passing particles. In this way the usual loss cone of the traditional linear mirror machines is eliminated. The single particle confinement is similar to that of tokamaks with most of particles well confined. The calculated neoclassical confinement is very good and is even better than that of an equivalent tokamak.

A neoclassically optimized compact stellarator with simple coils has been designed. The magnetic field of the new stellarator is generated by only four planar coils including two interlocking coils of elliptical shape and two circular poloidal field coils. The interlocking coil topology is the same as that of the Columbia Non-neutral Torus (CNT) [1]. The new configuration was obtained by minimizing the effective helical ripple [2] directly via the shape of the two interlocking coils. The optimized compact stellarator has very low effective ripple in the plasma core implying excellent neoclassical confinement. This is confirmed by the results of the drift-kinetic code SFINCS [3] showing that the particle diffusion coefficient of the new configuration is one order of magnitude lower than CNT's.