RF conditioning for the improvement of lower hybrid fast wave comb-line antenna performance on VEST

Abstract

RF conditioning is conducted to improve coupling and current drive performance of the comb-line antenna which is to excite fast wave in lower hybrid resonance frequency range in Versatile Experiment Spherical Torus (VEST). It has been observed that considerable outgassing, power dissipation and high reflection take place while diminishing transmitted power with poor reproducibility without the RF conditioning process which cleanses antenna surface by RF surface heating. Outgassing source during the RF conditioning is identified mainly as water vapor. A new dimensionless figure-of-merit to evaluate degree of the RF conditioning is defined with dissipated power and outgassing rate by analyzing experimentally observed RF conditioning data. Optimum performance of the antenna with low figure-of-merit (5 × 10−9) is achieved after conditioning for 3 days a week (∼40 shots) at less than 10 kW of input power. Coefficients of transmission, reflection, and dissipation reach to about 80%, 2%, and 18%, respectively indicating almost doubled antenna performance. Introduced new figure-of-merit provides a quantitative basis for antenna conditioning in order to improve antenna performance.