Design of a high–efficiency extreme ultraviolet overview spectrometer system for plasma impurity studies on the stellarator experiment Wendelstein 7-X

Abstract

The design for a set of four high-efficiency vacuum ultraviolet/extreme ultraviolet (VUV/XUV) spectrometers has been developed, which shall be used for plasma impurity monitoring and impurity transport studies on the stellarator experiment Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X). The new high-efficiency XUV overview spectrometer (HEXOS) system covers the wavelength range from 2.5 to 160 nm, divided into four subsections with some overlapping, thus achieving a complete coverage of prominent spectral lines from the relevant impurity elements. Taking into account spectrometer geometries and detector geometries, toroidal holographic diffraction gratings are numerically optimized to maximize the total throughput while maintaining good spectral resolution. The performance of the spectrometers is tested and optimized by means of ray tracing calculations. In order to prove the potential for line identification as well as the expected levels of signal intensity and noise figures of the new systems, spectra are simulated using the impurity transport code STRAHL. Under typical plasma conditions on W7-X the new spectrometers will allow clear identification of all relevant impurity elements in the plasma. The large collected photon flux results in a high accuracy for the measured line intensities, even when operating the spectrometers at spectra rates of 1000/s.