Balmer Alpha Emission Research Articles

First motional stark effect measurements at Wendelstein 7-X

The rotational transform plays a crucial role in magnetic confinement devices and its profile is directly related to stability and confinement properties. A popular way to assess the rotational transform profile is using a Motional Stark Effect diagnostic system, which relies on the splitting of the Balmer alpha emission, due to the interaction between a particle beam and the plasma. A prototype diagnostic was installed at the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X, in order to demonstrate that such a diagnostic can be operated in this device. This work presents the diagnostic design and preliminary measurements as well as the calibration procedures necessary to deal with the extra complexity of measuring polarisation via an aluminium mirror. Qualitative agreement with simulations is shown in the variation of the measured polarisation angle over wavelength. A small but significant change in the measured angle is seen with changes in the plasma beta. While of a similar order to that expected, insufficient sensitivity of the prototype precludes a quantitative match to the prediction. The required changes to sufficiently improve the sensitivity to achieve this in future experiments is discussed.

Beam emission spectroscopy diagnostic design and capabilities for two-dimensional turbulence measurements on Wendelstein 7-X

A beam emission spectroscopy (BES) diagnostic is designed for studying two-dimensional turbulent dynamics by measuring the Doppler-shifted Balmer-Alpha emission (n = 3 → 2) from neutral heating beams on Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator. The BES viewing geometry has been determined in the conceptual design previously. However, the small Doppler shifts and small optical throughput compared to a typical BES diagnostic demand dedicated efforts on the optical assemblies and the detector module for the BES system. We present the detailed opto-mechanical design and specifications of BES, including a customized neutral beam viewing optical system, a semi-telecentric optical assembly, and a detector module for electronic amplification. The point spread function is calculated using the pyFIDASIM code with experimental parameters and W7-X magnetic configurations to estimate the BES spatial resolution and beam intensity. The as-manufactured interference filter is applied for the spectral isolated beam radiance calculation. Result shows that the BES system is capable of measuring the ion-scale turbulence for k ⊥ ρ i ≤ 0.4 at r/a = 0.75 with reasonable spatial and wavenumber resolutions. An integrated detector module is fabricated where two 8×4 avalanche photodiode detectors (APD) are embedded into the custom-designed pre-amplifier circuit to gain signals to the desired level. The detector noise measurement is performed and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is evaluated. A detectable fluctuation level can be achieved as low as ñ e /n e ≈ 0.5% at frequency f ≤ 400 kHz with a bandwidth of 1 MHz.

Visible core spectroscopy at Wendelstein 7-X.

This paper presents an overview of recent hardware extensions and data analysis developments to the Wendelstein 7-X visible core spectroscopy systems. These include upgrades to prepare the in-vessel components for long-pulse operation, nine additional spectrometers, a new line of sight array for passive spectroscopy, and a coherence imaging charge exchange spectroscopy diagnostic. Progress in data analysis includes ion temperatures and densities from multiple impurity species, a statistical comparison with x-ray crystal spectrometer measurements, neutral density measurements from thermal passive Balmer-alpha emission, and a Bayesian analysis of active hydrogen emission, which is able to infer electron density and main ion temperature profiles.

Using convolutional neural networks to detect edge localized modes in DIII-D from Doppler backscattering measurements.

In H-mode tokamak plasmas, the plasma is sometimes ejected beyond the edge transport barrier. These events are known as edge localized modes (ELMs). ELMs cause a loss of energy and damage the vessel walls. Understanding the physics of ELMs, and by extension, how to detect and mitigate them, is an important challenge. In this paper, we focus on two diagnostic methods-deuterium-alpha (Dα) spectroscopy and Doppler backscattering (DBS). The former detects ELMs by measuring Balmer alpha emission, while the latter uses microwave radiation to probe the plasma. DBS has the advantages of having a higher temporal resolution and robustness to damage. These advantages of DBS diagnostic may be beneficial for future operational tokamaks, and thus, data processing techniques for DBS should be developed in preparation. In sight of this, we explore the training of neural networks to detect ELMs from DBS data, using Dα data as the ground truth. With shots found in the DIII-D database, the model is trained to classify each time step based on the occurrence of an ELM event. The results are promising. When tested on shots similar to those used for training, the model is capable of consistently achieving a high f1-score of 0.93. This score is a performance metric for imbalanced datasets that ranges between 0 and 1. We evaluate the performance of our neural network on a variety of ELMs in different high confinement regimes (grassy ELM, RMP mitigated, and wide-pedestal), finding broad applicability. Beyond ELMs, our work demonstrates the wider feasibility of applying neural networks to data from DBS diagnostic.

Factors Influencing the Fluctuation Amplitude of the H− Ion Beam Extracted from an RF Wave Excited Ion Source Plasma

The beam oscillation of J-PARC ion source is being studied as AC electric field at 2 MHz ion source driving frequency can directly change the extraction characteristics of both H− ions and electrons. The internal RF antenna inducing the electric field generated two peaks of plasma production during one RF cycle as confirmed by 4 MHz modulation of Balmer-alpha (Hα) emission intensity. The coupling between the plasma production at 4 MHz and the oscillation of the local plasma potential in the vicinity of the extraction hole at 2 MHz can cause 6 MHz oscillation, which was observed in the measurement of extraction current from the ion source. Phase-delay of Hα intensities from the source plasma and those of the extraction electron current were compared with the RF input signal to the amplifier.

Cross sections in He+ + H collisions for the energy region 1–100 keV u−1

We have calculated the cross sections for the elastic, excitation, electron capture, and ionization processes in He+ + H collision using a semiclassical atomic orbital close-coupling method within two-electron treatment. The calculated data are compared with those of the experiments and previous theoretical calculations. The excitation cross sections to H(n = 2) states are in good agreements with the measurements of Geddes et al. The Balmer-alpha emission cross section of H is about half the size of the experimental data of Donnelly et al. The electron capture cross section is close to the experimental data of Lockwood et al and Olson et al. The ionization cross section is in accord with the experimental data of Hsu et al.

Upgraded main ion charge exchange recombination spectroscopy on the C-2W field reversed configuration (FRC) plasma.

A prototype main-ion CHarge Exchange Recombination Spectroscopy (mCHERS) diagnostic is providing measurements of the main-ion (hydrogen or deuterium) temperature and velocity in the C-2W field reversed configuration plasma using charge exchange Balmer-alpha emission at five different radial locations with 500Hz frequency and a per-pixel velocity resolution of 15 km/s. Measurement along the entire plasma radius of C-2W is enabled by a diagnostic neutral beam (DNB) that passes through the center of plasma, unlike the larger diameter heating neutral beams that have impact parameters of 20cm. DNB provides high time resolution via beam modulation and spatial resolution via its small cross section. The goals of the current mCHERS upgrade are to double the number of spatial channels, improve the per-pixel velocity resolution by three times, and increase the measurement frequency to match the maximum modulation frequency of the diagnostic neutral beam (∼10kHz). To accomplish these goals, a new astigmatism-free Isoplane spectrometer has been commissioned. Progress and results from the newly upgraded mCHERS system are detailed.

Development of a narrow stopband filter for spectroscopic fast ion deuterium-alpha measurements.

A new technique to attenuate the unshifted deuterium Balmer-alpha (D-alpha) emission is developed and tested for the fast ion D-alpha (FIDA) diagnostic. The unshifted D-alpha emission, at λ = 656.1nm, is around three orders of magnitude higher than the desired FIDA emission. Blocking the strong emission feature is essential to prevent blooming and light smearing on the CCD chip and scattered light contamination. The new method is a notch filter approach that utilizes the reflection from ultra-narrow bandpass filters to block the saturating signal before it enters the spectrometer. Collimated light from the fibers is reflected off the filter at a 15° angle of incidence. Measurements show that a center wavelength transmission of 0.006 and a blocking full width at half maximum of ∼1 nm are achieved by using a 200 μm fiber and a 20mm focal length collimator with two filters.

Observation of poloidal asymmetry in measured neutral temperatures in the Aditya-U tokamak plasma

The neutral particle temperature in the edge region of the Aditya-U tokamak has been measured by recording the hydrogen Balmer alpha emission spectra at 656.28 nm from different lines of sight in both the high and low field sides. The spatial profile of the Hα emission has been recorded using a 1 m multi-track spectrometer. The neutral temperature is estimated from the Doppler broadening of the measured Hα spectrum by appropriately removing the contribution from the Zeeman splitting of the spectral lines. A computer simulation code was developed to estimate the neutral temperature by including the broadening mechanisms such as Doppler broadening and the Zeeman effect to simulate the Hα emission spectrum along with the proper convolution of the instrumental width of the diagnostic system. It has been observed that the high field side neutral temperature (~4–6 eV) during plasma flat top is almost twice that of the low field side (~2–3 eV) suggesting poloidal asymmetry in the neutral temperature.

Tomography of a simply magnetized toroidal plasma

Optical emission spectroscopy is a passive diagnostic technique, which does not perturb the plasma state. In particular, in a hydrogen plasma, Balmer-alpha (Hα) emission can be easily measured in the visible range along a line of sight from outside the plasma vessel. Other emission lines in the visible spectral range from hydrogen atoms and molecules can be exploited too, in order to gather complementary pieces of information on the plasma state. Tomography allows us to capture bi-dimensional structures. We propose to adopt an emission spectroscopy tomography for studying the transverse profiles of magnetized plasmas when Abel inversion is not exploitable. An experimental campaign was carried out at the Thorello device, a simple magnetized torus. The characteristics of the profile extraction method, which we implemented for this purpose are discussed, together with a few results concerning the plasma profiles in a simply magnetized torus configuration.

Direct measurements of safety factor profiles with motional Stark effect for KSTAR tokamak discharges with internal transport barriers.

The safety factor profile evolutions have been measured from the plasma discharges with the external current drive mechanism such as the multi-ion-source neutral beam injection for the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) for the first time. This measurement has been possible by the newly installed motional Stark effect (MSE) diagnostic system that utilizes the polarized Balmer-alpha emission from the energetic neutral deuterium atoms induced by the Stark effect under the Lorentz electric field. The 25-channel KSTAR MSE diagnostic is based on the conventional photoelastic modulator approach with the spatial and temporal resolutions less than 2 cm (for the most of the channels except 2 to 3 channels inside the magnetic axis) and about 10 ms, respectively. The strong Faraday rotation imposed on the optical elements in the diagnostic system is calibrated out from a separate and well-designed polarization measurement procedure using an in-vessel reference polarizer during the toroidal-field ramp-up phase before the plasma experiment starts. The combination of the non-inductive current drive during the ramp-up and shape control enables the formation of the internal transport barrier where the pitch angle profiles indicate flat or slightly hollow profiles in the safety factor.

Correlations between density distributions, optical spectra, and ion species in a hydrogen plasma (invited).

An experimental study of plasma distributions in a 2.45 GHz hydrogen discharge operated at 100 Hz repetition rate is presented. Ultrafast photography, time integrated visible light emission spectra, time resolved Balmer-alpha emission, time resolved Fulcher Band emission, ion species mass spectra, and time resolved ion species fraction measurements have been implemented as diagnostic tools in a broad range of plasma conditions. Results of plasma distributions and optical emissions correlated with H(+), H2(+), and H3(+) ion currents by using a Wien filter system with optical observation capability are reported. The magnetic field distribution and strength is found as the most critical factor for transitions between different plasma patterns and ion populations.

A high spatial resolution Stokes polarimeter for motional Stark effect imaging

We describe an enhanced temporally switched interfero-polarimeter that has been successfully deployed for high spatial resolution motional Stark effect imaging on the KSTAR superconducting tokamak. The system utilizes dual switching ferroelectric liquid crystal waveplates to image the full Stokes vector of elliptically polarized and Doppler-shifted Stark-Zeeman Balmer-alpha emission from high energy neutral beams injected into the magnetized plasma. We describe the optical system and compare its performance against a Mueller matrix model that takes account of non-ideal performance of the switching ferro-electric liquid crystal waveplates and other polarizing components.

Spatial heterodyne Stokes vector imaging of the motional Stark-Zeeman multiplet

We present a general Stokes interferometer/polarimeter suitable for polarimetric imaging the elliptically polarized motional Stark-Zeeman multiplet. We also introduce a fully phase-heterodyne spatial multiplex variant of the system that has been used for imaging of Balmer alpha emission from the heating neutral beam in the KSTAR super-conducting tokamak in Korea. The polarimeter performance is illustrated using various polarization test targets.

Influence of discharge conditions on energetic hydrogen atoms in a glow discharge

Influence of discharge conditions on fast hydrogen atoms in glow discharge is investigated using Balmer alpha emission spectroscopy. Investigation was performed in two orthogonal directions of observation in pure hydrogen. The shapes of the profiles are examined together with the space intensity distribution of the excessively broadened Balmer alpha line. It was found that line profile, space intensity distribution, and energy distribution of exited atoms strongly depend on voltage, pressure, and the reduced electric field. This confirms that fast H atoms are generated in charge exchange processes and neutralization of ions at cathode surface and not in a non-field process.

Influence of cathode material on generation of energetic hydrogen atoms in a glow discharge

In this paper influence of cathode material on formation of fast hydrogen atoms in an abnormal glow discharge is investigated using Balmer alpha emission spectroscopy. Energetic H atoms are generated in charge exchange reactions of hydrogen ions that are accelerated in the electric field, and also formed in the backscattering process at the cathode surface. Copper and graphite cathodes were used. Investigation was performed in two orthogonal directions of observation in pure hydrogen and argon-hydrogen mixture. The shapes of the profiles are examined together with the space intensity distribution of Balmer alpha line. Reduced atom reflection from graphite was manifested in the spectroscopic result, in accordance to the field acceleration model. The effect was evident only at high ion energies. This is explained by energy dependence of reflection coefficient for H atoms.

Active and passive spectroscopic imaging in the DIII-D tokamak

Wide-angle, 2D imaging of Doppler-shifted, Balmer alpha (Dα) emission from high energy injected neutrals, charge exchange recombination (CER) emission from neutral beam interaction with thermal ions and fully stripped impurity ions and visible bremsstrahlung (VB) from the core of DIII-D plasmas has been carried out. Narrowband interference filters were used to isolate the specific wavelength ranges of visible radiation for detection by a tangentially viewing, fast-framing camera. Measurements of the Dα emission from fast neutrals injected into the plasma from the low field side reveal the vertical distribution of the beam, its divergence and the variation in its radial penetration with density. Modeling of this emission using both a full Monte Carlo collisional radiative code as well as a simple beam attenuation code coupled to Atomic Data and Analysis Structure emissivity lookup tables yields qualitative agreement, however the absolute magnitudes of the emissivities in the predicted distribution are larger than those measured. Active measurements of carbon CER brightness are in agreement with those made independently along the beam midplane using DIII-D's multichordal, CER spectrometer system, confirming the potential of this technique for obtaining 2D profiles of impurity density. Passive imaging of VB, which can be inverted to obtain local emissivity profiles, is compared with measurements from both a calibrated filter/photomultiplier array and the standard multichordal CER spectrometer system.

Large-area imager of hydrogen leaks in fuel cells using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

We constructed a simple device, which utilized laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy to image H2 gas leaking from the surfaces of hydrogen fuel cells to ambient air. Nanosecond laser pulses of wavelength lambda=532 nm emitted from a neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet laser were first compressed to a pulse length Deltat<1 ns using a stimulated Brillouin backscattering cell. Relay-imaging optics then focused this beam onto the H(2) leak and initiated the breakdown plasma. The Balmer-alpha (H-alpha) emission that emerged from this was collected with a 2-m-long macrolens assembly with a 90-mm-diameter image area, which covered a solid angle of approximately 1 x 10(-3)pi steradians seen from the plasma. The H-alpha light was isolated by two 100-mm-diameter interference filters with a 2 nm bandpass, and imaged by a thermoelectrically cooled charge-coupled device camera. By scanning the position of the laser focus, the spatial distribution of H2 gas over a 90-mm-diameter area was photographed with a spatial resolution of < or = 5 mm. Photoionization of the water vapor in the air caused a strong H-alpha background. By using pure N2 as a buffer gas, H2 leaks with rates of <1 cc/min were imaged. We also studied the possibilities of detecting He, Ne, or Xe gas leaks.

Axial Profile of Balmer-Alpha Emission near a Tungsten Target in the Compact PWI Simulator APSEDAS

The axial profile of Balmer-alpha emission near a tungsten target has been measured in the compact plasma wall interaction (PWI) simulator Advanced PWI Simulation Experimental Device and Analysis System (APSEDAS). Axial Hα emission decreases toward the target at two levels, a steep gradient within 10 mm of the target and a shallow gradient more than 10 mm away. The structure of the Hα profile within 40 mm of the target is the same even though the electron density changes by one order of magnitude and the neutral pressure changes by a factor of three. On the other hand, the Hα profile more than 40 mm from the target gradually increases with increasing hydrogen filling pressure, although it does not change with the density in the case of constant filling pressure.

Observation of core-hole double excitations in water using fluorescence spectroscopy

The hydrogen Lyman-alpha, Balmer-alpha, and Balmer-beta emission has been measured from the H2O molecule at photon energies exceeding the 1s ionization threshold. Fluorescence emission is shown to ...