Current drive for rotamak plasmas

Abstract

Experiments which have been undertaken over a number of years have shown that a rotating magnetic field can drive a significant non-linear Hall current in a plasma. Successful experiments of this concept have been made with a device called rotamak. In its original configuration this device was a field reversed configuration without a toroidal magnetic field but with a vertical field to establish the MHD equilibrium. However, modifications have shown that current can also be driven if a central current-carrying rod is used to provide an applied toroidal field. The new rotamak has then a spherical tokamak magnetic field structure.