James Alexander Grossnickle

Particle and recycling control in translation, confinement, and sustainment upgrade

Previous work in the translation, confinement, and sustainment upgrade (TCSU) device [H. Y. Guo et al., Phys. Plasmas 15, 056101 (2008)] demonstrated improved plasma parameters; higher temperature, higher poloidal magnetic field, increased current drive, and increased energy confinement, for rotating magnetic field (RMF) driven field reversed configurations (FRC) relative to the earlier TCS device. This was accomplished by improving vacuum conditions and using moderate wall heating (∼100 °C) and glow discharge cleaning for wall conditioning. Two new wall conditioning techniques, siliconization and titanium gettering, have been employed to further reduce impurities and control recycling. Both techniques reduced oxygen line radiation by an order of magnitude, and total radiated power by 50%, but led to little change in overall FRC performance, reinforcing the earlier conclusion that TCSU FRCs are not radiation dominated. Titanium gettering substantially reduced deuterium recycling, requiring a new method of...