Operation results of the KSTAR far infrared interferometer.

Abstract

The 2015 KSTAR experimental campaign was the first year of routine measurement with a far infrared interferometer (FIRI) utilizing 118.87 μm CH3OH lasers at maximum 200 mW CW beam power. By using rtEFIT reconstruction, the path lengths of interferometers can be calculated and so the line-averaged electron densities n¯e from the FIRI and a millimeter-wave interferometer were in excellent agreement. In this way, the number of successfully diagnosed discharges is counted: 1003 shots or 83.7% of sustained discharges, defined as shots of plasma current IP ≥ 0.3 MA with pulse lengths tf ≥ 2.0 s, have good-quality FIRI data within a few fringe jump errors. In addition, real-time H-mode density feedback control based on the FIRI was also successfully achieved with supersonic molecular beam injection as an actuator. Both constant density and controlled linear increment with a ramp-up rate of 1.0 × 1019 m-3 s-1 were achieved.