The recent progress of thermonuclear fusion research based on the magnetic confinement of high-temperature plasmas, as weil as the design ofthe first experi mental fusion tokamak reactors, has demonstrated that the physical conditions at the plasma periphery playa decisive role in achieving, maintaining, and controlling the thermonuclear bUffi. Because it is an interface between the hot burning deute rium-tritium plasma and the cold material walls ofthe reactor vessel, the boundary (or the edge) plasma has to fulfill many functions related to the protection of the reactor walls from the...