Plasma Technology

Fusion Plasma Diagnostics

Soeren Krosholm inside TEXTOR with CTS beam and signal optics.

High-power collective Thomson scattering (CTS) using millimeter-wave gyrotron beams is under development as a diagnostic of fast ions in magnetically confined fusion plasma experiments.  Energetic ions are an integral component of fusion plasmas. They are necessary through auxiliary heating to initiate fusion and are products of the resulting fusion process.  It is essential that these ions remain confined and give up their energy to fusion reactions.  Consequently, the physics of high-energy ions produced by auxiliary heating and by fusion reactions must be understood and controlled in order to progress to a practical source of power.  CTS will provide spatially resolved fast ion energy distribution measurements, which are the best data for benchmarking and advancing fusion plasma predictive models.  The Plasma Technology Division at the PSFC is part of an international partnership that is using gyrotron facilities at two European tokamak laboratories (TEXTOR and ASDEX Upgrade) to develop and use CTS for fast ion studies.  This work is expected to lead to a much needed fusion product alpha-particle diagnostic for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).   

The main partners in this work are the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT (USA), Risø National Laboratory (Denmark), the Institute for Plasma Physics (Jüleich, Germany), and the Max Plank Institute for Plasma Physics (Garching, Germany).

For more information:

Fast Ion Dynamics Measured by Collective Thomson Scattering, H. Bindslev, L. Porte, J. A. Hoekzema, P. Woskov, and D. Van Eester, International Conference on Advanced Diagnostics for Magnetic Inertial Fusion, Varenna, 2001.

Conception of thermal far-infrared collective Thomson scattering and its evolution to gyrotron scattering on JET/TEXTOR/ASDEX Upgrade, P. P. Woskov, Le Petit International Symposium on Laser Aided Plasma Diagnostics, Fukuoka, Japan, psfc.mit.edu/library/04JA007, 2004.

Beam ion distributions in ITER, and their impact on alpha particle measurements by collective Thomson scattering, J. Egedal, H. Bindslev, R. V. Bundy, P. Woskov, Nuclear Fusion, 45, 184-190, 2005.

To learn more about this research contact:

Paul Woskov, Plasma Science and Fusion Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

Henrik Bendslev, Risø National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark

Links:

Risø National Laboratory,   www.risoe.dk

Institute for Plasma Physics (Jüleich, Germany),  www.fz-juelich.de/ipp

Max Plank Institute for Plasma Physics (Garching, Germany),  www.ipp.de