Resonance Heating Research Articles

Probing the Protein Folding Energy Landscape: Dissociation of Amyloid-β Fibrils by Laser-Induced Plasmonic Heating.

Insoluble amyloid fibrils made from proteins and peptides are difficult to be degraded in both living and artificial systems. The importance of studying their physical stability lies primarily with their association with human neurodegenerative diseases, but also owing to their potential role in multiple bio-nanomaterial applications. Here, gold nanorods (AuNRs) were utilized to investigate the plasmonic heating properties and dissociation of amyloid-β fibrils formed by different peptide fragments (Aβ16-22/Aβ25-35/Aβ1-42) related to the Alzheimer's disease. It is demonstrated that AuNRs were able to break mature amyloid-β fibrils from both the full length (Aβ1-42) and peptide fragments (Aβ16-22/Aβ25-35) within minutes by triggering ultrahigh localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) heating. The LSPR energy absorbed by the amyloids to unfold and move to higher levels in the protein folding energy landscape can be measured directly and in situ by luminescence thermometry using lanthanide-based upconverting nanoparticles. We also show that Aβ16-22 fibrils, with the largest persistence length, displayed the highest resistance to breakage, resulting in a transition from rigid fibrils to short flexible fibrils. These findings are consistent with molecular dynamics simulations indicating that Aβ16-22 fibrils possess the highest thermostability due to their highly ordered hydrogen bond networks and antiparallel β-sheet orientation, hence affected by an LSPR-induced remodeling rather than melting. The present results introduce original strategies for disassembling amyloid fibrils noninvasively in liquid environment; they also introduce a methodology to probe the positioning of amyloids on the protein folding and aggregation energy landscape via nanoparticle-enabled plasmonic and upconversion nanothermometry.

Design and experimental results of a 28 GHz, 400 kW gyrotron for electron cyclotron resonance heating

A high-power 28 GHz gyrotron has been successfully developed at the Institute of Applied Electronics, China Academy of Engineering Physics. This gyrotron was designed for electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) in the spherical tokamak XL-50. A diode magnetron injection gun was designed to produce the required gyrating electron beam. The gyrotron operates in the TE8,3 mode in a cylindrical open cavity. An internal quasi-optical mode converter was designed to convert the operating mode into a fundamental Gaussian wave beam and separate the spent electron beam from the outgoing microwave power. A tube has been built and successfully tested. The operational frequency of the tube is 28.1 GHz. For beam parameters at an accelerating voltage of 71 kV and beam current of 16 A, the gyrotron has delivered an output power of 400 kW, with a pulse length of 5 s. The output efficiency is about 50% with a single-stage depressed collector. The gyrotron has been installed on the XL-50 and has played an important role in the ECRH experiments.

Triple Langmuir probe calibration in TOMAS ECRH plasma

In the TOMAS device, a triple Langmuir probe is used to measure the electron temperature and density. The accuracy of this measurement depends on correct determination of the effective collecting area of the probe, which depends on complex plasma transport processes. The probe can be calibrated by electron cyclotron resonance heating experiments using the cut-off density of the ordinary wave (O-wave). This threshold only depends on the frequency of the injected wave, and the occurrence of this phenomenon is clearly visible in the temperature evolution. The value of density is consequently known at this point and can be used to calibrate the density measurements of the triple Langmuir probe.

Multipactor-Triggering Powers’ Modelling of a WEST ICRH Antenna During RF Conditioning

During radio frequency (RF) conditioning of the ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) system on WEST, under vacuum, pressure rises are measured inside the antennas. A proposed hypothesis for the cause of this phenomenon is multipactor, an electron multiplication process taking place in RF devices under vacuum. Modelling multipactor conditions in a resonant antenna, i.e., under high standing wave (SW) ratio, requires particular precautions. This article proposes a methodology to determine the multipactor conditions in such a context. Using the proposed approach, the operational conditions, expressed as the generator’s RF powers, of the appearance of multipactor inside a WEST ICRH antenna during its RF conditioning under vacuum, are deduced. Calculations are performed for two different surface states: when the surface is baked but nonconditioned, and when it is baked and fully conditioned. For the nonconditioned surface state, it is shown that when only one side of the under-conditioning ICRH antenna is powered, the off-mode side is prone to multipactor when its capacitors are tuned. Detuning the capacitors on the off-mode side suppresses almost the multipactor on the nonpowered side for the frequency range of interest. Moreover, it is shown that the fully conditioned antenna surface state can suppress the appearance of multipactor in some regions of the antenna.

Preliminary design and thermo-mechanical analysis of the ECRH equatorial launcher focusing mirror (M1) towards the CFETR

The Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) Equatorial Launcher (EL) is under research towards the China Fusion Experimental Tokamak Reactor (CFETR). In the latest pre-research model, 6MW of electromagnetic waves would be guided to the plasma by two focusing mirrors (M1 & M2) and one front plate steering mirror (SM). Since the M1 will experience intense heat generation from ohmic dissipation and neutronic irradiation, a specific water-cooling structure has been designed for it to reduce the thermal deformation, allowing the M1 to experience less mechanical pressure during long pulses. The simulation demonstrates that water can efficiently dissipate ∼0.3 kW of neutronic heat and ∼30 kW of ohmic loss heat. As a result, the maximum deformation and equivalent stress are less than 0.4 mm and 160 MPa, respectively, which satisfactorily meets the system requirements.

High-order coupling of shear and sonic continua in JET plasmas

A recent model coupling the shear-Alfvén and acoustic continua, which depends strongly on the equilibrium shaping and on elongation in particular, is employed to explain the properties of Alfvénic activity observed on JET plasmas below but close to the typical frequency of toroidicity-induced Alfvén eigenmodes (TAEs). The frequency gaps predicted by the model result from high-order harmonics of the geodesic field-line curvature caused by plasma shaping (as opposed to lower-order toroidicity) and give rise to high-order geodesic acoustic eigenmodes (HOGAEs), their frequency value being close to one-half of the TAEs one. The theoretical predictions of HOGAE frequency and radial location are found to be in fair agreement with measurements in JET experiments, including magnetic, reflectometry and soft x-ray data. The stability of the observed HOGAEs is evaluated with the linear hybrid magnetohydrodynamic/drift-kinetic code CASTOR-K, taking into account the energetic-ion populations produced by neutral beam injection and ion cyclotron resonance heating systems. Wave-particle resonances, along with drive/damping mechanisms, are also discussed in order to understand the conditions leading to HOGAEs destabilisation in JET plasmas.

Study of half‐bridge series‐resonant induction cooker powered by line rectified DC with less filtering

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis and design strategy for a half‐bridge series resonant induction heating (HB SR‐IH) cooker powered by a rectified sinusoidal DC. The simplified equivalent circuit of an induction cooker is modelled by a train of rectified sinusoidal DC pulses chopped at the switching frequency. An average root‐mean‐square (RMS) method is proposed to calculate the RMS resonant voltage and current extrapolated to the power line frequency period. The stability of the cooker is achieved by properly setting the damping ratio in the root‐locus plane to keep the system running quasi‐resonantly at the required power. The power control of the SR HB‐IH cooktop is performed by forced commutation above the resonance frequency. A prototype of a 3 kW HB SR‐IH cooker was designed and implemented to validate the estimated results. Various waveforms from low power to high power are discussed and verified by damping ratio control. The SR HB‐IH cooktop achieves a high‐power factor of 0.95 to 0.995 when generating 300W to 3kW due to less filtered DC power. The power quality assessment showed that the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the line current and voltage measured at 3 kW was 4.1% and 3.5%, respectively.

Conceptual design of the DTT ECRH quasi-optical transmission line

The Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility is being realised in Frascati, Italy for the study of the power exhaust issues in view of DEMO tokamak. A multi-MW Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) system is foreseen with a first set of 16 gyrotrons at 1 MW and 170 GHz available for the first stage of operation; additional 16 gyrotrons with power from 1 MW to 1.2 MW are foreseen in a later stage for a total of up to 33.6 MW of ECRH at plasma. ECRH system itself is part of the 45 MW of external additional heating coupled to the plasma, provided also by Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating and Neutral Beam Injection. The Transmission Line (TL) is fully quasi-optical, between 84 m and 138 m long and will transfer power up to 1.5 MW per beam from the building hosting the ECRH sources to the Torus Hall. The main section runs in a straight elevated corridor at a few meters above the ground level. In order to have low power losses and a simpler and manageable system, the long TL run is made by four quasi-optical Multi-Beam (MB) lines each transmitting 8 beams via shared mirrors, similar to the W7-X Stellarator TL. The system is thus organised in “clusters” each one made of the 8 gyrotron sources and the respective transmission line and launchers. Avoidance of losses in air and microwave leaks is assured by a vacuum enclosure of the whole line with the use of metallic gaskets. Single-Beam (SB) transmission lines are foreseen at the beginning and end of the MB line, to cover the distance from the gyrotron to a beam-combining mirror and from a splitting mirror to the launcher. The optical design has to cope with space constraints in the building and inherent conversion losses at the reflection on metallic mirrors, whose number was minimised. First evaluations with the electromagnetic modeling tool GRASP and first concepts for the MB mirror cooling are reported.

The behaviour of the argon transport with electron cyclotron resonance heating in J-TEXT

The transport of impurities is very important for burning plasma; in particular, the accumulation of highly charged impurities will lead to the deterioration of plasma performance and trigger disruption by radiation losses. In order to study impurity transport in Joint Texas EXperimental Tokamak electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) plasmas, argon has been injected at the discharge flattop in an amount approximately 1% that of fuelling hydrogen gas to ensure no significant effect on the discharge. Experimental results show that precursor oscillations with a sawtooth appearance are beneficial for argon ion transport to the wall. The argon behaviour has been modulated by ECRH, with the power deposited inside/outside the sawtooth inverse radius. The ECRH power deposited outside the sawtooth inverse radius can induce larger precursor oscillations in the end of sawtooth and promote the argon transport. The ECRH power deposited inside the sawtooth inverse radius can induce oscillations in the mid-phase of the sawtooth and decrease the core toroidal rotation velocity, which can enhance argon transport. The results of the analysis that these oscillations can lead to an outward convection velocity, which means that the argon ions are transported to the wall. In addition, the oscillations in the mid-phase of the sawtooth can strongly enhance the argon transport.

Operational characteristics of a free-piston Stirling generator with resonant self-circulating heat exchangers

Heat transfer is one of the most critical issues faced by free-piston Stirling generators (FPSGs) during power amplification, and the emergence of resonant self-circulating heat exchangers offers an alternative solution. In this study, a high-power FPSG with resonant self-circulating heat exchangers has been numerically studied using commercial software SAGE and thermoacoustic post-processing. The principle feasibility and operational characteristics of the proposed system with different loop lengths are verified based on comparative analysis with the Component Test Power Convertor. Results show that introducing a self-circulating heat exchanger can achieve high-power heat transfer through a steady flow. However, it results in a significant degradation in the performance of the FPSG, where the acoustic power loss in the loop is the most critical cause. The pump used to generate the steady flow also requires additional power consumption. Furthermore, systems with shorter loops of non-integer multiples of wavelength have higher system efficiency and lower pump power consumption. For example, the output electric power can achieve 9.9 kW (corresponding to a thermal-to-electric efficiency of 18.8%) when the loop length is 2 m, where the power consumption of the pump is only 0.19 kW. Meanwhile, the pipe diameter of the loop and the temperature difference between the inlet and outlet of the high-temperature heat exchanger should be determined by considering both the performance of the FPSG and the power consumption of the pump.

Design & manufacturing of cooled immersion tubes for divertor bolometry in Wendelstein 7-X

After the successful Operation phase 1.2b experimental campaign Wendelstein 7-X was upgraded for steady-state operation with pulse duration of 1800s and up to 18 GJ energy input. Heat management in steady-state requires active water-cooling of the in-vessel components, in particular if temperature-stable environments are required for diagnostics such as bolometry. Two new, actively cooled bolometer immersion tubes (IT) with two camera housings (5–7 detector heads each) have been designed and manufactured for W7-X. By installing the two IT in the same module viewing the poloidal plasma cross-section from opposite sides provides a complete coverage with lines of sight. This allows tomographic reconstruction of the plasma radiation, but make accurate knowledge of the diagnostic geometry essential. This makes accurate manufacturing and assembly essential.An additional design challenge in W7-X is the suppression of Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) stray-radiation as well as undesired particle deposition from plasma deposition, dust and boronization in the interior of the IT. This was realized with a welded sheet metal shell and a shutter system for each IT. In the design of the cooling channel, a high degree of temperature stability in particular for the detector heads was required. This resulted in complex components that were challenging for conventional manufacturing approaches. Selective laser melting might be an improvement for future projects.

Helimak control system

The excellent wall condition is essential for fusion devices to generate reproducible high-parameter plasma. Wall conditioning techniques should be validated before applying on large fusion devices to reduce potential risk. Helimak, a toroidal steady state magnetic confinement device, was reassembled and upgraded to a technical validation platform for wall conditioning. A new control system has been developed to achieve the upgrade of Helimak. The control system is based on a distributed control architecture, which provides not only efficient development but also flexible control mechanisms. For each auxiliary subsystem, a corresponding local control module is developed to drive and control a variety of equipment. The control network ensures real-time transmitting of the parameters and data. A dedicated trigger network and timing control module can improve synchronization and real-time performance. Data acquisition system based on mature commercial busses provides sufficient data acquisition capabilities for diagnostic tools. The data management system uses MDSplus to provide convenient data access. An independent interlock and safety system is designed for comprehensive and reliable personal protection. After engineering commissioning, the Helimak has realized wall conditioning by electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) plasma at different resonance positions. The flexibility of control systems allows the installation of more wall conditioning tools in the future that will provide the ability to validate combined wall conditioning techniques. Helimak will become a low-cost, reliable technology verification platform, which will help to achieve advanced scenarios in tokamak and stellarator.

Development of the control system for electron cyclotron resonance heating on J-TEXT tokamak

A 105 GHz/500 kW/1 s electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) system has been developed on J-TEXT tokamak since 2017. The core component of the ECRH system is a gyrotron manufactured by Gyrotron Complexes Ltd. (GYCOM Ltd.), which generates microwaves of a certain frequency and power. To guarantee safe and stable operation, it is necessary to design a specialized control system. The control system is expected to perform time sequence trigger, protection, signal monitoring, communication, and data acquisition. The hardware is built with real-time processors and data acquisition modules from National Instruments. The control program is realized by LabVIEW. Test results indicate that the control system can commit stable and safe operation of the gyrotron, which guarantees the integrated commissioning tests of the whole ECRH system and ECRH related physics experiments. Under the operation of this control system, the gyrotron can generate microwaves as expected, and the ECRH system is well protected when a fault takes place.

Electron dynamics in planar radio frequency magnetron plasmas: II. Heating and energization mechanisms studied via a 2d3v particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo code

The present work investigates electron transport and heating mechanisms using an (r, z) particle-in-cell simulation of a typical rf-driven axisymmetric magnetron discharge with a conducting target. Due to a strong geometric asymmetry and a blocking capacitor, the discharge features a large negative self-bias conducive to sputtering applications. Employing decomposition of the electron transport parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field lines, it is shown that for the considered magnetic field topology the electron current flows through different channels in the (r, z) plane: a ‘transverse’ one, which involves current flow through the electrons’ magnetic confinement region (EMCR) above the racetrack, and two ‘longitudinal’ ones, where electrons’ guiding centers move along the magnetic field lines. Electrons gain energy from the electric field along these channels following various mechanisms, which are rather distinct from those sustaining dc-powered magnetrons. The longitudinal power absorption involves mirror-effect heating (MEH), nonlinear electron resonance heating, magnetized bounce heating (MBH), and the heating by the ambipolar field at the sheath-presheath interface. The MEH and MBH represent two new mechanisms missing from the previous literature. The MEH is caused by a reversed electric field needed to overcome the mirror force generated in a nonuniform magnetic field to ensure sufficient flux of electrons to the powered electrode, and the MBH is related to a possibility for an electron to undergo multiple reflections from the expanding sheath in the longitudinal channels connected by the arc-like magnetic field. The electron heating in the transverse channel is caused mostly by the essentially collisionless Hall heating in the EMCR above the racetrack, generating a strong azimuthal drift velocity. The latter mechanism results in an efficient electron energization, i.e. energy transfer from the electric field to electrons in the inelastic range. Since the main electron population energized by this mechanism remains confined within the discharge for a long time, its contribution to the ionization processes is dominant.

Energy Confinement Dynamics and Some Properties of Plasma Self-Organization in ECRH Regime in the L-2M Stellarator

At the L-2M stellarator, in the electron cyclotron resonance heating regime, the processes of plasma self-organization were studied in different successive phases of plasma confinement during the facility shot. It is shown that in the phase of initial plasma heating, because of the absence of plasma-wall interaction, the canonical pressure profiles of the electronic component are not formed. In the quasi-stationary phase, the forming pressure profiles are close to the canonical one, and the energy loss is somewhat higher than in the phase beginning immediately after switching off the microwave heating pulse. After turning off the microwave pulse, the self-organization processes form the canonical pressure profiles of the electronic component in plasma, which ensure minimal energy loss from the plasma. In this case, the total power of energy losses from the plasma is proportional to the cube of the plasma energy.

Effects of ion temperature on detached plasma formation using a linear divertor simulator TPDsheet-U

The effect of ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) on the detached plasma formation process was investigated using a linear divertor simulator, TPDsheet-U. We measured the stored energy (ion temperature), electron temperature, electron density, and Balmer series emission intensity ratio of the plasma while increasing the ICRH RF power from 0 to 400 W. It was observed for the first time that the electron temperature of detached plasma increased and the Balmer series emission intensity ratio became smaller when the ion temperature was increased by applying a resonance frequency ωRF, which is about 1.2 times the ion cyclotron frequency ωci of hydrogen ions. This suggests that increasing the ion temperature causes a transition from a detached plasma to an attached plasma.

3D simulation of orbit loss and heat load on limiters of ICRF-NBI synergy induced fast ions on EAST

Fast ions synergy induced by ion-cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) and neutral beam injection (NBI) are of interest not only because of their advantage of heating the plasma and drive currents, but also because of their disadvantage of damaging plasma surface components and driving MHD instabilities. In this paper, we calculate the fast ion loss and the deposition distribution of the lost particles on the limiters in EAST under the synergistic effect of the ripple field and collisions with the full-orbit-following simulation program ISSDE for the first time. The previous models to study the NBI fast ion loss by the action of ICRF are relatively simple and consider fewer influencing factors. Most studies on fast ion loss have used toroidal uniform boundaries. In this work, we consider the distribution of ICRF-NBI synergy induced fast ions with different minority H concentrations. After setting the limiter boundary, we consider the prompt fast ion loss caused by the equilibrium field and the fast ion loss caused by the ripple field and collision. Under the action of minority-ion ion-cyclotron resonant heating, the NBI fast ion distribution function has spread in the high-energy part, especially for the minority H concentration of 1%, and the fast ions show each anisotropic distribution near the resonance band on the poloidal dimension. The synergistic loss caused by the ripple field and collision will first be greater than the loss caused by either factor, and then reach a final loss fraction of 3.8%. The heat load power density of the lost fast ions on different limiters is not uniform, as well as on each limiter, which is related to the distance from the limiter to the plasma, the relative position between the limiters and the parallel direction of most fast ions. Once the study of ICRF-NBI synergy induced fast ion loss caused by the action of ripple and collision has been done, we can do optimization in a targeted manner. Such as adding ferromagnetic inserts to reduce the ripple loss and optimizing the limiters’ position to reduce or control the generation of impurities.

Recent modeling for the ITER ion cyclotron range of frequency antennas with the TOPICA code

This paper documents the analysis of the ITER ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRF) launcher using the TOPICA code, throughout recent years’ design activities. The ability to simulate the detailed geometry of an ICRF antenna in front of a realistic plasma and to obtain the antenna input parameters, the electric currents on conductors and the radiated field distribution next to the antenna is of significant importance to evaluate and predict the overall system performances. Starting from a reference geometry, we first investigated the impact of some geometrical and numerical factors, such as the Faraday Screen geometry or the mesh quality. Then a final geometry was the object of a comprehensive analysis, varying the working frequency, the plasma conditions and the poloidal and toroidal phasings between the feeding lines. The performance of the antenna has been documented in terms of input parameters, power coupled to plasma and electric fields. Eventually, the four-port junction has also been included in TOPICA models.

Energy load on first wall components in high density, small ELM regimes in ASDEX Upgrade

A set of dedicated shots with constant heating power combining NBI (Neutral Beam Injection) and ECRH (Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating) have been executed at the ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) tokamak using a highly shaped small ELM magnetic geometry in order to investigate the differences on heat loads at the first wall of AUG by means of the revised cooling water calorimetry. The flattop fuelling has been varied on a shot-to-shot basis while keeping constant all the other parameters, exploring a large range of the density operational space of AUG. Reducing the fuelling rate allows a gradual transition from small ELM regime at high density into a Type-I ELMy H-mode. Additionally, the safety factor q has been increased/decreased by changing Btor, which leads also to variations in the heating scheme. With the lowest flattop fuelling, reaching a Type-I ELMy H-mode, a fraction of ∼ 6% of calorimetrically captured energy loads at the first wall normalized against the entire calorimetrially captured energy has been recorded, whereas in the highest fuelling case, being in small ELM scenario, the first wall heat loads are increased up to 16%. Considering all cases reveal an almost linear trend between the fraction of energy deposited at the first wall and the turbulence control parameter αt. This observation is consistent with an enhancement of the filamentary activity at higher αt, when the plasma turbulence is dominated by resistive interchange modes at the separatrix.

Microwave-to-optical transduction with erbium ions coupled to planar photonic and superconducting resonators

Optical quantum networks can connect distant quantum processors to enable secure quantum communication and distributed quantum computing. Superconducting qubits are a leading technology for quantum information processing but cannot couple to long-distance optical networks without an efficient, coherent, and low noise interface between microwave and optical photons. Here, we demonstrate a microwave-to-optical transducer using an ensemble of erbium ions that is simultaneously coupled to a superconducting microwave resonator and a nanophotonic optical resonator. The coherent atomic transitions of the ions mediate the frequency conversion from microwave photons to optical photons and using photon counting we observed device conversion efficiency approaching 10−7. With pulsed operation at a low duty cycle, the device maintained a spin temperature below 100 mK and microwave resonator heating of less than 0.15 quanta.