A fringe jump counting method for the phase measurement in the HCN laser interferometer on EAST and its FPGA-based implementation

Electron density in fusion plasma is usually diagnosed using laser-aided interferometers. The phase difference signal obtained after phase demodulation is wrapped, which is also called a fringe jump. A method has been developed to unwrap the phase difference signal in real time using FPGA, specifically designed to handle fringe jumps in the hydrogen cyanide(HCN) laser interferometer on the EAST superconducting tokamak. This method is designed for a phase demodulator using the fast Fourier transform(FFT) method at the front end. The method is better adapted for hardware implementation compared to complex mathematical analysis algorithms, such as field programmable gate array(FPGA). It has been applied to process the phase measurement results of the HCN laser interferometer on EAST in real time. Electron density results show good confidence in the fringe jump unwrapping method. Further possible application in other laser interferometers, such as the POlarimeter-INTerferometer(POINT)system on EAST tokamak is also discussed.

Observation of Doppler shift f_(D) modulated by the internal kink mode using conventional reflectometry in the EAST tokamak

In this paper we present a new experimental observation using a conventional reflectometry technique,poloidal correlation reflectometry(PCR),in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak(EAST).The turbulence spectrum detected by the PCR system exhibits an asymmetry and induced Doppler shift f_(D)during the internal kink mode(IKM)rotation phase.This Doppler shift f_(D)is the target measurement of Doppler reflectometry,but captured by conventional reflectometry.Results show that the Doppler shift f_(D)is modulated by the periodic changes in the effective angle between the probing wave and cutoff layer normal,but not by plasma turbulence.The fishbone mode and saturated long-lived mode are typical IKMs,and this modulation phenomenon is observed in both cases.Moreover,the value of the Doppler shift f_(D)is positively correlated with the amplitude of the IKM,even when the latter is small.However,the positive and negative frequency components of the Doppler shift f_(D)can be asymmetric,which is related to the plasma configuration.A simulated analysis is performed by ray tracing to verify these observations.These results establish a clear link between f_(D)and IKM rotation,and are helpful for studying the characteristics of IKM and related physical phenomena.

Experimental observations of naturally occurring dust using a high-speed vacuum ultraviolet imaging system in EAST

In the ELMy H-mode experiment,naturally occurring dust originating at the high-field side is clearly observed using the high-speed vacuum ultraviolet imaging system developed on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak(EAST).The main ablation cloud shape is similar to the classical shape observed in pellet fueling experiments.However,during the dust penetration,an erupted secondary cloudlet with a bent‘cigar’shape is observed and moves upwards along the direction perpendicular to the magnetic field line,which is different to the obviation in the pellet fueling experiments.This may be due to the ion diamagnetic drift effect.The velocities of the secondary cloudlet are estimated to be 50–80 m s^(-1).In addition,a significant degradation of the plasma confinement is observed during the dust penetration.

Runaway electron dynamics in Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak helium plasmas

The generation of runaway electrons(REs)is observed during the low-density helium ohmic plasma discharge in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak(EAST).The growth rate of hard x-ray(HXR)is inversely proportional to the line-average density.Besides,the RE generation in helium plasma is higher than that in deuterium plasma at the same density,which is obtained by comparing the growth rate of HXR with the same discharge conditions.The potential reason is the higher electron temperature of helium plasma in the same current and electron density plateau.Furthermore,two Alfvén eigenmodes driven by REs have been observed.The frequency evolution of the mode is not fully satisfied with the Alfvén scaling and when extension of the Alfvén frequency is towards 0,the high frequency branch is~50 kHz.The different spatial position of the two modes and the evolution of the helium concentration could be used to understand deviation between theoretical and experimental observation.

Development of an upgraded motional Stark effect diagnostic system on EAST tokamak

A new multi-channel motional Stark effect(MSE)diagnostic system has been developed on the upgraded EAST tokamak,which was installed on the port C to observe a tangential neutral beam.A telecentric imaging lens was deployed to ensure uniform illumination from the core to the boundary.A square fiber head which contained 23 fiber bundles was mounted to this imaging lens;each fiber bundle contained 19 fibers and two of them were assigned to CXRS and BES spectrometer,respectively.The angle tuning method was used for matching the Doppler shift of theσcomponent’s wavelength which was caused by the beam voltage.At the present stage,the MSE system only contains ten channels that would be extended to 23 channels in the future,covering a measurement range from R=1.8 to R=2.27 m with a temporal resolution of 10 ms and a spatial resolution of3 cm.The polarization angle-constrained q profiles and current density profiles were reconstructed with EFIT equilibrium reconstructions.In the sawtooth discharges,the q=1 surface position was validated by the ECE signals,which further verified the rationality of the MSE measurement.

Spatial localization of ECE measurement in EAST LHW-heated plasmas

In this work, electron cyclotron emission(ECE) is simulated by using the code SPECE to study the spatial localization of ECE measurement in EAST plasmas heated by lower hybrid wave(LHW).The results indicate that generally there are two emission layers for an individual frequency in plasmas with non-thermal electrons, and they are separately attributed to the thermal electrons and non-thermal electrons. The emission layer due to the thermal electrons is nearly identical to that for the case with Maxwellian distribution. The emission layer due to non-thermal electrons is well localized in the location of the non-thermal electrons. Even though the non-thermal emission layer is broader, the emission intensity is smaller than that from the thermal emission layer for the cases studied in this work. Localized electron temperature fluctuations can still be distinguished by ECE measurement as long as it does not coexist with the non-thermal electrons. Sawtooth inversion radii and tearing mode island location determined respectively by the ECE measurement and the soft x-ray measurement for a LHW-heated plasma show a good agreement, and this indicates that the ECE measurement in the plasma core region is not seriously polluted.

Improvement of Plasma Performance Using Carbon Pellet Injection in Large Helical Device

A cylindrical carbon pellet with a size of 1.2L x 1.2φ mm to 1.8L x 1.8φ mm and a velocity of 100 m/s to 300 m/s was injected into large helical device （LHD） for an efficient fueling based on its deeper deposition instead of hydrogen gas puffing and ice pellet injection. Electron density increment of Ane = 10^14 cm^-3 is successfully obtained by single carbon pellet injection without plasma collapse. Typical density and temperature of the ablation plasma of the carbon pellet, e.g., 6.5× 10^16 cm^-3 and 2.5 eV for CII, are examined respectively by spectroscopic method. A confinement improvement up to 50% compared to ISS-95 stellarator scaling is clearly observed in a relatively low-density regime of ne = 2 × 10^13 cm^-3 to 4×10^13 cm^-3, and high ion temperature Ti（0） of about 6 keV is also observed with an internal transport barrier at ne = 1.2 × 10^13 cm^-3. In particular, the improvement in the ion temperature largely exceeds that observed in hydrogen gas-puffed discharges, which typically ranges below 3 keV.