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The upgraded heavy ion beam probe diagnostics on the T-10 tokamak

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2016 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 747 012017

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II Conference on Plasma & Laser Research and Technologies IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 747 (2016) 012017 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/747/1/012017

The upgraded heavy ion beam probe diagnostics on the T-10

tokamak

M A Drabinskii1,2,6, P O Khabanov1,3, A V Melnikov1,4, L I Krupnik5,

A S Kozachek5, A D Komarov5 and A I Zhezhera5
1
National Research Centre ‘Kurchatov Institute’, 1, Akademika Kurchatova pl.,
Moscow, 123182, Russian Federation
2
Bauman Moscow State Technical University, 5, ul. Baumanskaya 2-ya, Moscow,
105005, Russian Federation
3
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 9, Institutskiy per., Dolgoprudny,
Moscow Region, 141700, Russian Federation
4
National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, 31, Kashirskoe highway, Moscow,
115409, Russian Federation
5
National Science Center Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology,
1, Akademicheskaya St., Kharkov, 61108, Ukraine

E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. The upgraded Heavy Ion Beam Probe (HIBP) diagnostics on the T-10 tokamak
(National Research Center ‘Kurchatov Institute’) is presented. HIBP is a powerful tool to study
electric potential in the core and edge plasmas along with broadband turbulence and
quasicoherent modes such as Geodesic Acoustic Mode (GAM) and Alfven Eigenmode (AE).
To study broadband turbulence and AEs, which can be driven by fast electrons in regimes with
auxiliary Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating the frequency range of about several hundred
kHz is needed. The upgrade is focused on the extension of the frequency range of HIBP signals
up to 500 kHz, and on increasing of density operating limit up to 5∙1019 m-3. It becomes
possible due to a newly designed emitter-extractor unit of HIBP accelerator aiming to provide
the primary beam with the current of 300 μA at the energy of 300 keV and diameter of 7-10
mm. The new in-vessel elements of a primary beamline – wire sensor and Faraday cup – were
upgraded accordingly to be able to deliver the probing beam with advanced parameters to the
plasma.

1. Introduction
Heavy Ion Beam Probe (HIBP) is instrumental to study magnetically confined plasmas. It is the only
diagnostic to measure the electric potential in hot plasma of toroidal fusion devices, both tokamaks
and stellarators [1, 2]. For the first time in tokamaks this technique was implemented by Jobes and
Hickok in 1970 [3]. Unlike electric probes, HIBP does not disturb the plasma and the measurements
are direct and local, taking place in both core and the edge plasmas. Moreover, along with electric
potential, HIBP gives information on the electron density and the poloidal magnetic field or plasma
current [4]. High time resolution provides the study of the fluctuations of all these quantities [5].
6
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II Conference on Plasma & Laser Research and Technologies IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 747 (2016) 012017 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/747/1/012017

Remarkably, the measurements of all three HIBP quantities takes place simultaneously, which gives
an important contribution to comprehensive analysis of the plasma turbulence.
HIBP has started to operate on T-10 tokamak with Cs+ probing ions since late 1980-s [4, 6] in the
regimes with low density ohmic plasmas and low magnetic field B=1.5 T. Then HIBP was upgraded
several times to be able finally to operate in the ohmic and auxiliary Electron Cyclotron Resonance
heated regimes with high magnetic field B≤2.5 T and densities up to 4×1019m-3 using Tl+ probing ions
[7]. The recent research with HIBP on T-10 is focused on studying of broadband plasma turbulence
[8] and quasicoherent modes of plasma oscillations such as Geodesic Acoustic Mode (GAM) [9, 10,
11, 12] and Magneto Hydro Dynamic (MHD) tearing modes [13, 14]. GAM is a high-frequency type
of zonal flows which is supposed to be a mechanism of turbulence self-regulation [15, 16]. It has been
shown recently that GAM can interact with broadband turbulence at the ion drift wave frequencies
(200-300 kHz) [17, 18], so the investigation of these processes in depth is important for understanding
the mechanisms of the turbulent energy and particle transport. Interaction between fast ions, alpha-
particles or fast electrons with a bulk plasmas can drive Alfven Eigenmodes (AE), which theoretically
can have a considerable influence on fast particle transport [19]. Therefore, studies of AE can make a
significant contribution to fusion reactor physics. Recently the Neutral Beam Injection induced AE
were intensively studied with HIBP on the TJ-II stellarator [20, 21, 22, 23]. On top of that, the fast
electron induced modes were found on TJ-II [24]. In T-10 it is expected to find AE driven by fast
electrons at frequencies up to 500 kHz.
The modernization, described in the present paper aims to expand the observation area towards the
plasma core (with densities up to 5×1019 m-3) and to broaden the frequency range of studied
fluctuations to 500 kHz in order to provide the study of the broadband turbulence, GAMs, MHD
modes and AEs.

2. Principles of operation and the measurement technique

HIBP is a test particle experiment using heavy ions as test particles. Commonly, singly charged ions of
Na+, K+, Cs+, Tl+ or Au+ are used as particles of a probing beam (the heavyweight Tl+ is used now on
T-10). The probing (primary) beam after being formed in the emitter-extractor unit and accelerated in
the injector enters plasma and moves along Larmour circle in a toroidal magnetic field of a tokamak
(see figure 1 (a)). As the primary beam passes through plasma, its particles are further ionized due to
the collisions with plasma electrons. Doubly charged (secondary) ions move along the trajectories with
twice smaller Larmour radius and form a fan of secondary ions. Proca-Green parallel plate energy
analyzer is set on the way of these secondary ions. The aperture of the analyzer cuts out a secondary
beam from the fan so only the particles from a given ionization point (sample volume - SV) reach a
given detector location.
At the SV the primary ion loses an electron with an energy of -eΦ, where e is an electron charge and Φ
is the value of plasma electric potential at the SV. Thus, Φ can be calculated as

  W1  W2  / e ,

where W1 is the energy of the primary beam and W2 is the energy of a secondary beam.
As far as plasma potential is measured as a small difference between two large values, both beam
injector and energy analyzer are the instruments of a high precision and stability, providing
ΔW1,2/W1,2~10-5. On T-10 the value of plasma potential has a range from several dozen Volts at the
periphery to several hundred Volts near the centre, as measured with primary beam energy up to 300
keV.
T-10 energy analyzer has five entrance slits, so five SV are observed simultaneously. The beam
from each SV enters to split plate detector (see figure 1 (b)). The primary beam current is 10-100 μA,
and the secondary beam current is about 0.1-10 nA so the current signal from split plates is pre-
amplified and converted to voltage with the factor of 107 V/A, then digitized and stored in the
database.

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II Conference on Plasma & Laser Research and Technologies IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 747 (2016) 012017 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/747/1/012017

Figure 1. (a) basic principle of HIBP diagnostic; (b) Proca-Green parallel plate energy analyzer on T-
10 (B – secondary beam, 5-S – five entrance slits, GP – ground plate, HVP – high voltage plate, G –
wire grid, W – window, D – 5 channels split plate detector assembly).

Total secondary beam current I on the detector plates is linked with electron density ne at SV as

I ~ I0 F1 F2 eff nel

where I0 is the primary beam current, F1,2 are attenuation factors for primary and secondary beams, σeff
is an effective cross-section of ionization, l is the length of the SV.

F j  exp(    j ne dl ) ; j=1,2;

σj is the ionization cross-section from j-state, the integration is carried over the entire path of the
primary/secondary beam. For low-to-moderate densities, when factors F1,2 are not dominating, the
density fluctuations are proportional to total current fluctuations:

n(t ) I (t )
~
n I

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II Conference on Plasma & Laser Research and Technologies IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 747 (2016) 012017 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/747/1/012017

3. Key features of the modernization

There are two reasons to increase the primary beam current. As soon as the attenuation factors F1,2
increase with the electron density, at high densities (ne >4×1019 m-3) the secondary beam current
becomes comparable to the noise level. So, for measurements at higher densities a higher value of
primary beam current density is required. In addition, the necessity to study plasma fluctuations claims
the continuous particle flow, not the particle counting character of the signal. The frequency resolution
is limited by the number of particles per oscillation period. So higher frequency resolution claims the
higher value of primary beam current density. Finally, to expand the frequency range of potential and
density fluctuations up to 500 kHz and to increase the density operating range up to 5×1019 m-3, it was
targeted to increase primary beam current to 300 μA at the beam diameter at the SV of 7-10 mm and
beam energy of 300 keV.

3.1. Emitter-extractor unit

To solve this task a new emitter-extractor unit was designed and prepared for assembly. The 3D-model
of the new unit is shown in figure 2 (a). A three-electrode lens configuration was chosen: the first one
is the emitter tablet holder, the second one is the extraction electrode and the third one is the focusing
electrode (the first ring of the accelerator tube) – see figure 2 (a) and (b). Calculations using Simion
3D code showed that this configuration will maintain the aimed values of primary beam current.
Figure 2 (b) shows the scheme and the circuit for the unit. It includes two batteries of high capacity
(120 A×hour each) and two 10 kV voltage sources.

(a) (b)
Figure 2. (a) New design of the emitter-extractor unit; (b) emitter-extractor unit power system circuit;
red marker shows thallium emitter covered by Pierce electrode with 6 mm hole.

3.2. Primary beamline

Since the primary beam current grows from 100 μA to 300 μA, its diameter at the beamline may also
increase. To avoid the beam contact with elements of the primary beamline, the in-vessel elements
were also upgraded, as presented in figure 3. The distance between first correcting plates in a vertical
direction (α-plates) was increased to 50 mm, and the Faraday cup diameter was increased to 56 mm.
Faraday cup has movable bottom driven by traction relay. It is open during the steady state phase of
the tokamak discharge to provide the beam pass into the plasma and then into the energy analyzer.

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II Conference on Plasma & Laser Research and Technologies IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 747 (2016) 012017 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/747/1/012017

Figure 3. Primary beamline. Faraday cup bottom is open.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 4. (a) Faraday cup (bottom closed); (b) the 1st wire sensor (front view, red lines show wires);
(c) typical current signals from two wire sensors, black and green are signals from the 1st sensor, blue
and red – from the 2nd one; the beam is focused on the 1st wire sensor, extraction voltage is 2.58 kV.

It is closed between tokamak discharges to provide primary beam current measurements and/or to
prevent the beam interaction with chamber wall or residual working gas. The secondary electrons
generated due to this interaction may be accelerated during the ramp up of the toroidal field and cause
hard X-ray emission entering the chamber well. To avoid this harmful effect the movable bottom
opens after the start of the plasma current. Photo of the new Faraday cup is shown in figure 4 (a). Wire
sensors are aimed to measure the primary beam profile and position. Combination of two beam
positions gives us the beam entrance angle to the plasma. Both upgraded 1st and 2nd wire sensors have
similar design with 2 horizontal and 2 vertical wires. The minimal possible number of wires was
chosen to minimize their influence on the beam. Front view of the 1st sensor is shown in figure 4 (b),
wires are painted in red. By changing the voltage on α- or β-plates, orthogonal to α- we move the
beam across the vertical or horizontal wires, thus measuring the beam profile and position by the wire
currents. The typical currents from two wires from two sensors for α-scan are shown on figure 4 (c). In
the present case the beam is focused on the 1st sensor with extraction voltage 2.58 kV.

4. Conclusion
The main physical aim of HIBP upgrade on the T-10 tokamak is to expand the diagnostic capabilities
to study the Geodesic Acoustic Modes interaction with broadband turbulence to 500 kHz in the
extended density operating range up to 5×1019 m-3. This requires the growth of the primary beam

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II Conference on Plasma & Laser Research and Technologies IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 747 (2016) 012017 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/747/1/012017

current to 300 μA. To achieve this value the new emitter-extractor unit was designed and the elements
of the primary beamline were upgraded.

Acknowledgements
The work was carried out by Russian Science Foundation, project 14-22-00193.

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II Conference on Plasma & Laser Research and Technologies IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 747 (2016) 012017 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/747/1/012017

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