Soft x-ray tomography on the high field spherical tokamak ST40.

Abstract

As part of its roadmap to developing commercial fusion plants, Tokamak Energy Ltd. operates the high field spherical tokamak ST40. Studies on this device will help to expand the high field spherical tokamak physics basis by characterizing confinement and the fusion triple product. In support of this, bolometers and broadband and x-ray sensitive diodes can provide information on key energy loss mechanisms of the plasma. These mechanisms include core magnetohydrodynamic activity that deteriorates confinement, such as sawtooth crashes that can be used to characterize relaxations in the q-profile. In addition, combinations of these diagnostics can be used to infer the total radiated power losses and plasma composition. Here, we present results from a new, midplane, tangential, Be-filtered diode with 16 channels spanning the radial extent of the plasma. The system is shown to resolve magnetohydrodynamic instabilities (up to 100kHz) and be able to provide radiation profiles through tomography. The tomographic inversion routine is compared against other diagnostics on ST40 and provides emissivity measurements across a variety of operating scenarios. Finally, we look ahead to implementing multiple soft x-ray cameras on ST40 and the improvements this will have on the diagnostic capabilities.