Mirror Station for studies of the protection of diagnostic mirrors from impurity contamination in ITER: Design and first results

Abstract

Optical and laser-based diagnostics in ITER will use mirrors to transmit plasma radiation and laser light to the corresponding detectors and cameras. Mirrors will be sputtered by the fast plasma particles and contaminated by impurities leading to the degradation of the reflectivity and hampering the performance of corresponding diagnostics. Dedicated measures were proposed to minimize the impurity deposition comprising the use of shutters and fins inside diagnostic ducts to trap impurities on their way toward the mirror located in the end of these ducts. Modeling results predict at least 7-fold suppression of the deposition for the duct having four fins located at the distance of a half of a diameter from each other. The Mirror Station (MS) was designed to validate modeling predictions and to study the suppression of deposition inside of diagnostic ducts. The MS contained cylindrical and cone-shaped tubes of different lengths with smooth and shaped geometry of ducts. The MS was exposed in the midplane port of TEXTOR for about 3960s of plasma operation. After exposure, no drastic suppression of deposition was observed in the cylindrical ducts with fins. In the conical tubes no deposition was detected outlining the advantages of a cone form.