Speaker
Description
The WEST superconducting tokamak in France features a full tungsten environment and is equipped with actively cooled walls providing valuable input for future operation of nuclear fusion reactors. Versatile multi-energy soft and hard x-ray pinhole cameras have been developed, calibrated, deployed and operated for long-pulse plasmas at WEST. These innovative imaging diagnostic leverages a pixelated Si and CdTe x-ray detectors capable of independently adjusting the lower energy threshold for photon detection on each pixel. Central electron temperature values and plasma effective charge are derived by modeling the slope of continuum radiation, extracted from ratios of inverted radial emissivity profiles across multiple energy ranges, without relying on a-priori assumptions of plasma profiles, magnetic field reconstructions, high-density limitations, or shot-to-shot reproducibility. Recent breakthroughs include the temporal evolution measurement of central temperature in quasi non-inductive scenarios with a stationary central electron temperature of ~4.5 keV (> 50 million degrees ℃) for up to 22 minutes with a total injected energy of up to 2.6 GJ. In addition, real-time measurements and control-room plots of plasma temperature and plasma position (<1 cm) are now also a reality. These results - among others – force our community to bridge the gap between fusion science and technology and high-energy physics using detector technology already developed for high-luminosity experiments at CERN capable of withstanding neutron fluences up to 10^15-10^16 n/cm2/MeV, and even higher: Si3D, SiC, Diamond and wide bandgap materials like GaN and AlN presently being considered for measuring UV, SXR and HXR, as well as neutron fluxes and spectra.
| Type of presentation (in-person/online) | in-person presentation |
|---|---|
| Type of presentation (I. scientific results or II. project proposal) | I. Presentation on scientific results |
