Stephen James Howard

Plasma density gradient measurement using laser deflection

For a given chord through a plasma, changes in the line integrated index of refraction as a result of a transverse density gradient can be observed by measuring the angle of deflection of a laser beam. In contrast to laser interferometers, this method of density profile measurement places modest requirements on laser quality and alignment procedures, allowing measurements to be conducted with short coherence length commercial laser diodes and segmented photodiode detectors. A prototype implementation of this scheme has been constructed and tested on the compact toroid injection experiment (CTIX). At densities comparable to magnetic fusion plasmas, laser deflections in the nanoradian range were measured. By assuming a particular density profile, a sensitivity of ∼1012cm−3∕nrad was obtained. This produced estimates of CTIX peak density in reasonable agreement with conventional interferometry data. The final goal of this diagnostic is a simple, reliable, array deployable density profile diagnostic.

Poloidal field amplification in a coaxial compact toroid accelerator

The Compact Toroid Injection Experiment (CTIX) produces spheromak-like compact toroids (SCTs) without external power switching, initiating a discharge by pulsed gas injection into a formation region containing a seed magnetic field generated by a solenoidal coil. After formation, the plasma is driven by an inductively delayed capacitor bank into an acceleration region, where surface axial and toroidal magnetic fields are measured at several axial positions. Due to strong eddy-current effects, formation-region magnetic field cannot be simply computed; instead, it is measured using the response of axial and radial test coils in the formation region to short solenoid test current pulses. A temporal and spatial reconstruction method is developed allowing formation-region field to be computed from the test-coil data for any CTIX discharge of identical solenoid geometry. By varying the peak value and timing of solenoidal current, curves of peak accelerator-region field as a function of initial formation-region field are developed. Curves of peak accelerator-region axial magnetic field are thereby found to be highly nonlinear functions of formation-region field, showing a threshold value for the formation-region field of approximately 5 G, above which acceleration-region field saturates at values between 2 and 12 kG. The direction of acceleration-region axial field reverses sign when the direction of solenoid current is reversed. Saturated accelerator-region axial field is a function of axial position and accelerator voltage, and is typically comparable to toroidal field at the same location. The ratio of accelerator-region to formation-region axial field commonly exceeds 1000 near the onset of saturation. This large amplification is of practical advantage for delayed plasma breakdown on CTIX, allowing a modest seed field to produce high poloidal fields, which are necessary for intense SCT acceleration. The results may also provide a useful benchmark for numerical simulation of the conversion of abundant toroidal field into poloidal field in a plasma with comparatively low dissipation.

Visible spectrometer at the Compact Toroid Injection Experiment and the Alcator C-Mod tokamak for Doppler width and shift measurements

A novel Doppler spectrometer is currently being used for ion or neutral velocity and temperature measurements on the Alcator C-Mod tokamak. The spectrometer has an f∕# of ∼3.1 and is appropriate for visible light (3500–6700A). The linewidth from a line emitting calibration source has been measured to be as small as 0.4A. The ultimate time resolution is line brightness light limited and on the order of milliseconds. A new photon efficient charge coupled device detector is being used at C-Mod. Time resolution is achieved by moving the camera during a plasma discharge in a perpendicular direction through the dispersion plane of the spectrometer, causing a vertical streaking across the camera face. Initial results from C-Mod as well as previous measurements from the Compact Toroid Injection Experiment are presented.

High-bandwidth polarimeter for a high density, accelerated spheromak

A three-beam heterodyne polarimeter has been built to diagnose the PI-1 plasma injector at General Fusion, Inc. The polarimeter measures plasma density and Faraday rotation, which can provide estimates of magnetic field magnitude and direction. Two important calibration steps are required for the polarimeter to produce reasonable Faraday rotation signals. Beam polarization ellipticity must be measured to ensure there is a linear Faraday rotation response. In addition, the two beams travelling through the plasma must be collinear to reduce error due to differences in plasma density. Once calibrated, the Faraday rotation signals are in much better agreement with other diagnostics. For a null signal, the Faraday rotation measurement noise floor is 0.1° at 0.5 MHz bandwidth. Comparing preliminary spheromak Faraday rotation measurements to a model, the maximum error is about 0.3° at 0.5 MHz bandwidth, which is primarily due to electrical noise during the injectors capacitor discharge and limitations of the model. At a bandwidth of 0.5 MHz, the polarimeter has an axial resolution between 6 cm and 30 cm depending on the speed of the spheromak, which varies between 30 km/s and 150 km/s. The spheromak length ranges from 0.75 m to 2 m. Additional polarimeter chords will be added in future upgrades.

Method of reconstructing a moving pulse

We present a method of analyzing a set of N time signals fi(t) that consist of local measurements of the same physical observable taken at N sequential locations Zi along the length of an experimental device. The result is an algorithm for reconstructing an approximation F(z,t) of the field f(z,t) in the inaccessible regions between the points of measurement. We also explore the conditions needed for this approximation to hold, and test the algorithm under a variety of conditions. We apply this method to analyze the magnetic field measurements taken on the Compact Toroid Injection eXperiment (CTIX) plasma accelerator; providing a direct means of visualizing experimental data, quantifying global properties, and benchmarking simulation.

Polarimeter for the General Fusion SPECTOR machine

A polarimeter has been designed to measure Faraday rotation and help to understand the profile of its safety factor, q, on the recently built SPECTOR magnetized target fusion machine at General Fusion. The polarimeter uses two counter-rotating, circularly polarized, 118.8 μm beams to probe the plasma. Grad-Shafranov simulations have been used to investigate the effect of measurement error and chord geometry.

Calibration of magnetic probes in the vicinity of a conducting well

Measuring magnetic fields near the edge of a plasma device can be complicated by the geometric effects of the ports through which such measurements are made. The primary effect is an attenuation of the magnetic field at the probe coil due to the field expanding into the finite sized conducting well of the port. In addition, it is possible to determine the correspondence between the location of a field line as it intersects the probe coil inside the well, with its location far from the perturbation of the well. Here we explore several methods of experimentally characterizing the magnetic fields in the vicinity of the magnetic probe ports of a vacuum vessel, with the aim of improving the interpretation of magnetic measurements needed for experiments in plasma physics.

Profiling Line-Averaged Compact Toroid Electron Density on CTIX With Arrayed Laser Deflectometry

The compact toroid (CT) injection experiment (CTIX) is a coaxial plasma rail gun originally designed for tokamak refueling. CTIX can form and accelerate CT plasmas of controllable densities and velocities. For a given chord through a plasma, changes in line-integrated transverse electron density gradient can be resolved by measuring the angle of deflection of a laser beam traversing the plasma. A vertical array of four temperature-controlled laser deflectometers was installed in the viewing section of CTIX and used to profile the line-averaged density of an unconstrained CT drifting at high velocity.