Jack Hare
@jdhare.bsky.social
Assistant professor at Cornell ECE and the Laboratory of Plasma Studies. I'm a plasma physicist, and PI of puffin.ece.cornell.edu . I'm interested in laboratory astrophysics and nuclear fusion using pulsed-power. ️🌈, he/him.
I'm packing for APS DPP in Long Beach Ca tomorrow, which includes the most vital item for any US conference: half decent tea bags!
November 15, 2025 at 5:52 PM
I'm packing for APS DPP in Long Beach Ca tomorrow, which includes the most vital item for any US conference: half decent tea bags!
A grad student is 3D printing a scale model of PUFFIN, but it comes out with these terrifying eldritch trees as support structures. Very disturbing.
November 14, 2025 at 7:36 PM
A grad student is 3D printing a scale model of PUFFIN, but it comes out with these terrifying eldritch trees as support structures. Very disturbing.
Wait, your lab doesn't have a popcorn maker? That sounds unbearable.
November 13, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Wait, your lab doesn't have a popcorn maker? That sounds unbearable.
For the last few years I've made an overview poster for the APS Division of Plasma Physics, featuring the work done in my group over the last 12 months. It's a great opportunity to look back and see what we've achieved, and a good source of material for future talks!
November 12, 2025 at 6:47 PM
For the last few years I've made an overview poster for the APS Division of Plasma Physics, featuring the work done in my group over the last 12 months. It's a great opportunity to look back and see what we've achieved, and a good source of material for future talks!
It was great to be back at MIT PSFC! Yesterday I packed most of my old lab, ready to move to Cornell and sat on the cmte for Zhou Lou's defense, and today I gave the PSFC seminar and caught up all my colleagues. Here I am with students old and current, and some new PUFFIN stickers!
November 8, 2025 at 1:14 AM
It was great to be back at MIT PSFC! Yesterday I packed most of my old lab, ready to move to Cornell and sat on the cmte for Zhou Lou's defense, and today I gave the PSFC seminar and caught up all my colleagues. Here I am with students old and current, and some new PUFFIN stickers!
The neon calibration lamp makes our experiment look very threatening.
July 19, 2025 at 6:05 PM
The neon calibration lamp makes our experiment look very threatening.
Back in the lab for two weeks of experiments on COBRA with this (for now) beautiful hardware! More experiments on guide field reconnection this time with Thomson scattering measurements.
July 15, 2025 at 12:40 AM
Back in the lab for two weeks of experiments on COBRA with this (for now) beautiful hardware! More experiments on guide field reconnection this time with Thomson scattering measurements.
Our lab techs complain that we pay them peanuts. This is outright slander: we pay them in U.S. fancy peanuts.
July 7, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Our lab techs complain that we pay them peanuts. This is outright slander: we pay them in U.S. fancy peanuts.
Requesting more free computer money to pay the computer for more plasma simulations. Maybe this time we can fix our dodgy boundary conditions!
July 2, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Requesting more free computer money to pay the computer for more plasma simulations. Maybe this time we can fix our dodgy boundary conditions!
I had a quick tour this morning of the incredible space which used to house Cornell's nuclear reactor. Look at the bridge crane! The control room! The smashed concrete where the reactor used to sit!
May 16, 2025 at 5:42 PM
I had a quick tour this morning of the incredible space which used to house Cornell's nuclear reactor. Look at the bridge crane! The control room! The smashed concrete where the reactor used to sit!
We had a look at potential places to site a pulser which could produce extremely high pressure states of matter which could be diagnosed using the brilliant X-ray beams on CHESS. Here's Prof. Dave Hammer for scale.
April 15, 2025 at 9:16 PM
We had a look at potential places to site a pulser which could produce extremely high pressure states of matter which could be diagnosed using the brilliant X-ray beams on CHESS. Here's Prof. Dave Hammer for scale.
We toured the newest experimental facilities at CHESS< including the shielded hall for the new NSF High Magnetic Field X-ray beamline.
April 15, 2025 at 9:16 PM
We toured the newest experimental facilities at CHESS< including the shielded hall for the new NSF High Magnetic Field X-ray beamline.
Tuesday morning is maintenance time, so we even got to enter the tunnel which houses the synchotron ring and the storage ring. This photo shows all the neat magnets used to keep the bunches of electrons tightly packed in the storage ring, before they produce brilliant X-ray beams.
April 15, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Tuesday morning is maintenance time, so we even got to enter the tunnel which houses the synchotron ring and the storage ring. This photo shows all the neat magnets used to keep the bunches of electrons tightly packed in the storage ring, before they produce brilliant X-ray beams.
This morning I toured the Cornell High Energy Synchotron Source (CHESS) with my colleagues from the Cornell Laboratory of Plasma Studies. Here we are in the control room, with a delightful range of instruments dating back to the 1960s.
April 15, 2025 at 9:16 PM
This morning I toured the Cornell High Energy Synchotron Source (CHESS) with my colleagues from the Cornell Laboratory of Plasma Studies. Here we are in the control room, with a delightful range of instruments dating back to the 1960s.
Many of my magnetic reconnection simulations end up looking like demonic owls, and I'm okay with that.
April 9, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Many of my magnetic reconnection simulations end up looking like demonic owls, and I'm okay with that.
After carefully analysing the data and comparing it to analytical models and 3D simulations, we were able to link the distinctive quadrupolar density structures we observed to two-fluid effects in the presence of a guide field!
March 3, 2025 at 4:12 PM
After carefully analysing the data and comparing it to analytical models and 3D simulations, we were able to link the distinctive quadrupolar density structures we observed to two-fluid effects in the presence of a guide field!
And here's WHAM, the exciting high field mirror device, and the Big Red Ball, used for fundamental plasma studies. It's inspiring to see so many labs, I have lots of ideas for setting up my own.
February 25, 2025 at 11:32 PM
And here's WHAM, the exciting high field mirror device, and the Big Red Ball, used for fundamental plasma studies. It's inspiring to see so many labs, I have lots of ideas for setting up my own.
I'm visiting UW Madison for a couple of days - where else can you find three toroidal magnetic confinement fusion devices within a few minutes walk? And tomorrow I'm off to see the WHAM mirror machine and the Big Red Ball!
Pictured: HSX and MST. Pegasus III was operating, so no pictures!
Pictured: HSX and MST. Pegasus III was operating, so no pictures!
February 25, 2025 at 12:26 AM
I'm visiting UW Madison for a couple of days - where else can you find three toroidal magnetic confinement fusion devices within a few minutes walk? And tomorrow I'm off to see the WHAM mirror machine and the Big Red Ball!
Pictured: HSX and MST. Pegasus III was operating, so no pictures!
Pictured: HSX and MST. Pegasus III was operating, so no pictures!
Shiny load hardware makes me happy, though it won't stay that way for long! Here are two identical inductive loads as a null test for current division and current switching experiments on COBRA at Cornell. Soon we'll add some plasma, and dynamically switch current between loads in < 100 ns! #Physics
February 4, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Shiny load hardware makes me happy, though it won't stay that way for long! Here are two identical inductive loads as a null test for current division and current switching experiments on COBRA at Cornell. Soon we'll add some plasma, and dynamically switch current between loads in < 100 ns! #Physics
They've put me on the photo board! Directly below the head of department, presumably so that she can keep a close eye on me...
January 22, 2025 at 2:11 PM
They've put me on the photo board! Directly below the head of department, presumably so that she can keep a close eye on me...
I've just finished up with my first class at Cornell! I'm teaching the Plasma Diagnostics course I lectured at MIT a couple of times. As always, I polled the class to find out what sort of plasma and which diagnostics they work with. The research is different here, but the diagnostics are similar!
January 21, 2025 at 9:12 PM
I've just finished up with my first class at Cornell! I'm teaching the Plasma Diagnostics course I lectured at MIT a couple of times. As always, I polled the class to find out what sort of plasma and which diagnostics they work with. The research is different here, but the diagnostics are similar!
With a slight feeling of deja vu, I'm preparing to set up a lab for PUFFIN! We have two rooms in the basement of Rhodes Hall, a control room (left) and the main room for PUFFIN (right). They are now mostly cleared out, ready for the construction work to begin soon!
January 15, 2025 at 5:28 PM
With a slight feeling of deja vu, I'm preparing to set up a lab for PUFFIN! We have two rooms in the basement of Rhodes Hall, a control room (left) and the main room for PUFFIN (right). They are now mostly cleared out, ready for the construction work to begin soon!
We're settling into our new home in Ithaca, ready for the start of the semester in Cornell. One of the best things about the area is all of the woods and wildlife - here's a curious American Kink watching us from cover in the Sapsucker Woods.
December 29, 2024 at 12:29 AM
We're settling into our new home in Ithaca, ready for the start of the semester in Cornell. One of the best things about the area is all of the woods and wildlife - here's a curious American Kink watching us from cover in the Sapsucker Woods.
We're very grateful to Ryan McBride and his team at Michigan for all of their help. The 3D geometry of the reconnection layer made it hard to interpret the results, but fortunately I'm married to a mathematician, so thanks to Alexander Betts for explaining to us what a "hyperbolic paraboloid" is!
December 4, 2024 at 2:06 PM
We're very grateful to Ryan McBride and his team at Michigan for all of their help. The 3D geometry of the reconnection layer made it hard to interpret the results, but fortunately I'm married to a mathematician, so thanks to Alexander Betts for explaining to us what a "hyperbolic paraboloid" is!