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Ion heating experiments have been carried out in the large helical device using ECH (82.5, 84.0, 168 GHz, ≤1 MW), ICRF (38.5 MHz, ≤2.7 MW) and NBI (H° beam: 160 keV, ≤9 MW). The central ion temperature has been observed from the Doppler broadening of Ti XXI (2.61 A) and Ar XVII (3.95 A) x-ray lines, which are measured using a newly installed crystal spectrometer with a charge-coupled device. Recently, in ECH discharges, on-axis heating became possible. As a result, a high Te(0) of 6–10 keV and a high ion temperature of 2.2 keV were obtained at ne = 0.6×1013 cm−3. A clear increment of Ti was also observed with the enhancement of the electron–ion energy flow when the ECH pulse was added to the NBI discharge. These results demonstrate the feasibility towards ECH ignition. A clear Ti increment was observed also in ICRF discharges at low density ranges of (0.4–0.6)×1013 cm−3 with appearance of a new operational range of Ti(0) = 2.8 keV > Te(0) = 1.9 keV. In low power ICRF heating (1 MW), the fraction of bulk ion heating is estimated to be 60% of the total ICRF input power, which means Pi>Pe. Higher Ti(0), up to 3.5 keV, was obtained for a combined heating of NBI ( Te(0), whereas the Ti(0) remained at relatively low values of 2 keV in H2 and He NBI discharges due to less Pi. The main reasons for the high Ti achievement in the Ne discharges are: (1) 30% increment of deposition power, (2) increase in Pi/ni (five times, Pi/niPe/ne, Pi

An internal transport barrier (ITB) was observed in the electron temperature profile in the Large Helical Device [O. Motojima et al., Phys. Plasmas 6, 1843 (1999)] with a centrally focused intense electron cyclotron resonance microwave heating. Inside the ITB the core electron transport was improved, and a high electron temperature, exceeding 10 keV in a low density, was achieved in a collisionless regime. The formation of the electron-ITB is correlated with the neoclassical electron root with a strong radial electric field determined by the neoclassical ambipolar flux. The direction of the tangentially injected beam-driven current has an influence on the electron-ITB formation. For the counter-injected target plasma, a steeper temperature gradient, than that for the co-injected one, was observed. As for the ion temperature, high-power NBI (neutral beam injection) heating of 9 MW has realized a central ion temperature of 5 keV with neon injection. By introducing neon gas, the NBI absorption power was increased in low-density plasmas and the direct ion heating power was much enhanced with a reduced number of ions, compared with hydrogen plasmas.

We developed a three-channel tangential CO2 laser polarimeter to measure electron densities on the Large Helical Device. Our system aims to obtain not only the line averaged electron density but also the electron density profile. The achieved resolution of the Faraday rotation angle was 0.01° with a response time of 3 ms by digital complex demodulation combined with digital filtering. The phase fluctuations whose amplitude is typically 0.05° with a time constant of several seconds were observed. It was found that they were caused by beam axis fluctuations from bench top experiments. In the case of pellet injected plasmas it was demonstrated that the polarimeter could measure the time evolution of the Faraday rotation with high reliability and resolution. The calibrated rotation angle of all chords were well consistent with interferometer data. Assuming the functional dependence of the density profile, we estimated the density profile after pellet injections from three-channel polarimeter data iteratively....

The superconducting machine LHD has conducted long pulse experiments for four years to achieve long-duration plasmas with high performance. The operational regime was largely extended in discharge duration and plasma density. In this paper, the plasma characteristics, in particular, plasma performance and impurity behaviour in long pulse discharges are described. Confinement studies show that global energy confinement times are comparable to those in short pulse discharges. Long sustainment of high performance plasma, which is equivalent to the previous achievement in other devices, was demonstrated. Long pulse discharges enabled us to investigate impurity behaviour in a long timescale. Intrinsic metallic impurity accumulation was observed in a narrow density window (2–3×1019 m−3) only for hydrogen discharges. Impurity transport study by using active impurity pellet injection shows a long impurity confinement time and an inward convection in the impurity accumulation window, which is consistent with the intrinsic impurity behaviour. The pulsed neon gas injection experiment shows that the neon penetration into the plasma core is caused by the inward convection due to radial electric field. Finally, impurity accumulation control with an externally induced magnetic island at the plasma edge was demonstrated.

A 32-channel heterodyne radiometer for the purpose of measuring the electron cyclotron emission (ECE) spectrum has been developed and installed on the large helical device (LHD). Two double-sideband mixers [bandwidth (BW=2–26 GHz) with image rejection filters (high-pass and low-pass filters)] are used to cover almost the full spectral range of the second harmonic LHD ECE. The spectral resolution of each sideband receiver is Δf=1.2 GHz, which corresponds to a spatial resolution of 1 cm at the position of the half plasma radius. A Gunn oscillator at 132 GHz is used as a local oscillator, so the frequency range covered by the system is 106–158 GHz, which corresponds to the second harmonic ECE for B(0)=2.82 T. It is found that the high temporal resolution (Δt∼1 μs) of the system with excellent signal-to-noise ratio is favorable for studying fast phenomena related to the magnetohydrodynamic activities and transport transitions. In this article, the properties of the diagnostic instrument and typical experimental results of the LHD ECE will be presented.

By changing the distribution of the coil currents in the helical coils of the large helical device (LHD) the plasma could be scraped off on the stainless steel inboard wall at the last closed flux surface, eliminating the ergodic edge region and helical divertor (HD) plasmas. During such NBI-heated discharges slow oscillations (1–2.5 Hz) have been observed in the major global parameters. These oscillations exhibit many similarities to the ‘breathing’ relaxation phenomenon observed during long pulse experiments in LHD when the divertor material was stainless steel. These similarities include a large core radiation fraction, significant radiation from the metallic impurities and dependence of the oscillation frequency on density. In contrast, discharges using the graphite HD show hollow radiation profiles and reduced levels of radiation from heavy impurities. Modeling shows that differences in the density dependence of the oscillation frequency between the wall limiter and HD cases can be attributed to differences in the impurity diffusion between the core and ergodic edge regions.

A CO2 laser (λ=10.6 μm) imaging interferometer was developed for detailed and precise electron density profile measurements and was installed on the large helical device in 2001. A CO2 laser is adopted to avoid fringe loss due to the short wavelength. An imaging scheme is employed that uses three slab-like beams and multichannel detector arrays to measure with fine spatial resolution. As an initial trial we used one slab-like beam that passes through the plasma edge. Phase distributions were measured without fringe loss even after pellet injection. Density profiles can be obtained by the slice and stack method with a spatial resolution of 16 mm (about 3% of the plasma minor radius). The electron density was found to rise to about 6×1019 m−3 just after pellet injection even near the last closed flux surface. Mechanical vibration effects would be negligible in such a case. A bench top experiment of a coaxial YAG laser (λ=1.06 μm) interferometer for vibration compensation was carried out.

In this article, we describe the electron cyclotron emission (ECE) imaging system applied to the Large Helical Device (LHD) at the National Institute for Fusion Science. The imaging system consists of focusing optics installed inside the vacuum chamber of LHD and planer-type detectors fabricated by monolithic microwave integrated circuit technology. The detector consists of the integration of a bowtie antenna, a down-converting mixer using a Schottky barrier diode, and heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) on a GaAs substrate. The HBTs work as an intermediate frequency (IF) amplifier with a 10 GHz bandwidth and a 10 dB voltage gain. The ECE signal and local oscillator beam are irradiated from both sides of the detector. The ECE signals are down-converted at the mixers and the IF signal is fed to a filter bank with center frequencies of 1–8 GHz. The time evolution and the intensity of the ECE signals agree with those obtained by a conventional ECE heterodyne receiver. The cross-correlation spectra of t...

A four channel pulsed radar reflectometer system has been installed on the Large Helical Device (LHD). The complicated magnetic structure in LHD causes mode conversion and/or polarization rotation of the microwaves. Pulsed radar reflectometry is a suitable reflectometric technique, because it measures the delay time of the reflected wave, not the phase, and X-mode and O-mode polarized waves can be distinguished. By using X-mode operation of the pulsed radar reflectometer so that each pulse width is about 2 ns, and the repetition rate is up to 200 kHz, the critical density where the microwave is reflected is about 1×10^16 m^?3. Also it is found that the static natural island affects the X-mode reflectometric measurements.

The relation between edge and helical divertor plasmas in the Large Helical Device are presented, in particular electron density ne and temperature Te behaviors, by line-averaged density n e scan ( n e ∼1–8×10 19 m−3) in the two typical magnetic configurations with relatively ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ naturally stochastic boundaries, respectively. The relations appear to be different in these configurations. With increasing n e , detachment-like behaviors of ne and Te are observed in the thick stochastic boundary configuration. On the other hand, both ne and Te at the divertor plate are almost proportional to them at near the last closed flux surface independent of n e . The different characteristics of particle screening and radiation power profile are suggested as causes of the different edge–divertor relations in these stochastic boundaries.

The time-of-flight-type neutral particle analyzer has an ability of horizontal scanning from 40 to 100° of the pitch angle. The information from the spatially resolved energy spectrum gives not only the ion temperature but also the information of the particle confinement and the electric field in plasmas. We have been studying the energy distributions at various magnetic configurations in the neutral beam injection (NBI) plasma. The spatially resolved energy spectra can be observed during long discharges of the NBI plasma by continuous scanning of the neutral particle analyzer. The shape of spectra is almost similar from 44° to 53°. However, the spectra from 55° are strongly varied. They reflect the injection pitch angle of the beam. The pitch angle scanning experiment during the long discharge of NBI plasma has also been made under the reversal of the magnetic field direction. NBI2 becomes counter injected with the reversal. We can easily observe the difference between co- and counter injections of NBI. During the electron cyclotron heating in the low-density plasma for the formation of the internal thermal barrier, large neutral particle increase or decease can be observed. The degree of the increase/decrease depends on the energy and the density. The reason for the variation of the particle flux is that the orbit of the trapped particle changes due to the electric field formed by the strong electron cyclotron heating.

A phase contrast interferometer employing a CO_2 laser (wavelength lambda_i = 10.6 ?m) is designed and installed in order to study density fluctuations on a large helical device. A 250×50 mm slab beam passes the edge of the plasma, where rho= r/a>0.65, and provides observations of edge density fluctuations. A spatial image of the integrated fluctuations is measured by a multichannel detector array, of which the effective spacing is 5 mm in the plasma. Measured wave number components are dominated by radial components, and within the range of 7.2×10^?2

A diagnostic system using short-wavelength far-infrared (FIR) lasers (40–70 μm in wavelength) is now being developed for high density and large volume plasmas. In the wavelength region, a CVD-diamond is the excellent materials for optical windows of the laser and the plasma vessel and beam splitters of a multichannel interferometer. To design these optical elements, the optical constants (refractive index n, absorption coefficient α and transmissivity T) of the CVD-diamond have been measured precisely by using FIR lasers of 48-, 57- and 71-μm in wavelength. As an example, the result for 57.1511 μm light is n = 2.383(1) ± 0.002, α = 0.19 ± 0.05 cm-1 and T = 97.5 ± 1.5% at 1.023 mm in thickness.

A powerful short-wavelength far-infrared (FIR) laser from 40µm to 100µm in wavelength is required for the optical source of diagnostics of high-density and large-volume plasmas, and a production of γ-rays by inverse Compton scattering. In order to design the optical system, we have measured the optical constants (refractive index and absorption coefficient) of crystal quartz, CVD-diamond, and silicon for the short-wavelength FIR lasers. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 153(3): 1–8, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20082

Significant advances in microwave and millimeter wave technology have enabled the development of a new generation of imaging diagnostics as a visualization tool in this frequency region. Millimeter...

Electron cyclotron emission (ECE) diagnostics have been developed in the Large Helical Device (LHD). The ECE is transmitted from the antenna to the spectrometer for 80 m by means of a corrugated waveguide system, which has a small transmission loss (˜30%) in LHD. Although the field angle changes from −40 to +30 degrees on the sight-line of the ECE antenna, it has been observed that the polarization of ECE, which is determined at the plasma edge in LHD, is identical for all frequencies. Thus, the electron temperature profile can be measured using the second harmonic X-mode of ECE. The ECE measured by the Michelson is calibrated with a hot source in order to reduce noise. The ECE temperature measurement agrees well with the Thomson scattering measurement over a wide range of electron densities. The radiometer is cross-calibrated to the Michelson, and is employed for the study of fast phenomena such as internal transport barrier (ITB) formation. Tangentially emitted ECE, in addition to the normal ECE, is investigated in LHD in order to explore the potential of ECE diagnostics.

The utility of ICRF heating in the LHD was demonstrated in the third campaign carried out in 1999. This paper summarizes the investigations made in 2000 with a focus on the optimization of ICRF heating. The flexibility of the LHD magnetic configuration was fully utilized as a key factor in the investigations. The experiments include (a) scan of magnetic field intensity, (b) scan of aspect ratio, (c) scan of magnetic axis shift, (d) scan of quadrupole magnetic field, and (e) cancellation of magnetic island. The performance of the ICRF heating was thus optimized with respect to magnetic parameters, while optimization was achieved mainly with respect to heating regime and wall conditioning in the third campaign. Some of these parameters are directly related to the orbit of trapped particles. Therefore, the relation between particle orbits and the performance of ICRF heating is also addressed in this paper based on analyses of the high-energy tail of ions.

A folded waveguide (FWG) antenna was used in the ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) on the large helical device (LHD) in the National Institute for Fusion Science. The FWG antenna is a waveguide antenna folded several times in order to make its size smaller. The FWG antenna in the LHD is designed so that slow waves are excited preferentially. It was used in the fourth experimental campaign in 2000-2001 for the purpose of plasma production and plasmas with an average electron density up to 3.0×1018 m-3 were obtained. This will be a high enough density for initial plasmas of neutral beam injection or ICRF to obtain plasmas with higher densities and temperatures. This is the first demonstration of the utility of an FWG antenna in magnetic confinement devices. Further investigations were made in order to understand the mechanism of plasma production. The maximum achievable plasma density increased with injection power and gas-puffing rate, and became saturated. The density became higher as the magnetic field strength was increased. Such experimental observations were explained by the wave accessibility conditions of a shear Alfven wave.

In the Large Helical Device (LHD), active edge plasma control using two types of divertor, helical divertor (HD) and the local island divertor (LID), is planned, respectively. The former is intrinsic in the heliotron-type magnetic configuration. In the latter case, large pumping efficiency is expected by making particle recycling localized toroidally using a divertor head and an externally produced m = 1, n = 1 island. In this paper, the divertor properties in the HD configuration are reviewed. The numerical result for design of LID is described. The results of the LID experiment performed in the Compact Helical System are also briefly reviewed.

Summary form only given. Development of the Collective Thomson Scattering (CTS) diagnostic system for LHD is presented. High frequency, tunable (87-97 GHz), medium power ( /spl sim/100 kW) quasi-optical gyrotron will be used as a radiation source. We will show the detailed description of the system as well as initial calculations of the scattered microwave power from the LHD plasma. Using the quasi-optical gyrotron as a radiation source was inspired by the fact that this particular device has the ability of tuning of the operational frequency. Which is made it very attractive for using under the various scenarios for LHD plasmas. It is planned that the system utilize 'forward scattering schema' of the experimental set-up. The calculation of the expected scattered power shows that (in the chosen frequency range and chosen values of the scattered angle) the dominant part of it came from the so-called 'ion-feature'. This is a situation when the incident radiation is mainly scattered by the 'shielded ions' (by electron cloud). Other advantage for using gyrotron (not 10.6 /spl mu/m CO/sub 2/ laser) as a power source is as follows. Since for the typical scattering experiments under consideration scattered wave number is k /spl sim/ k/sub i/ sin(/spl theta//sub B//2). Thus for coherent scattering to occur, it is possible to significantly increase the scattered angle /spl theta//sub B/ as a wave length of the incident radiation increases from the short wavelength (CO/sub 2/ laser) through far-infra-red (FIR) wavelength to the millimeter wavelength of gyrotrons.

As the finalization of a hydrogen experiment towards the deuterium phase, the exploration of the best performance of hydrogen plasma was intensively performed in the large helical device. High ion and electron temperatures, Ti and Te, of more than 6 keV were simultaneously achieved by superimposing high-power electron cyclotron resonance heating onneutral beam injection (NBI) heated plasma. Although flattening of the ion temperature profile in the core region was observed during the discharges, one could avoid degradation by increasing the electron density. Another key parameter to present plasma performance is an averaged beta value $\left\langle \beta \right\rangle $ . The high $\left\langle \beta \right\rangle $ regime around 4% was extended to an order of magnitude lower than the earlier collisional regime. Impurity behaviour in hydrogen discharges with NBI heating was also classified with a wide range of edge plasma parameters. The existence of a no impurity accumulation regime, where the high performance plasma is maintained with high power heating >10 MW, was identified. Wide parameter scan experiments suggest that the toroidal rotation and the turbulence are the candidates for expelling impurities from the core region.

We propose a new interferometer system for density profile measurements. This system produces multiple measurement chords by a leaky-wave antenna driven by multiple frequency inputs. The proposed system was validated in laboratory evaluation experiments. We confirmed that the interferometer generates a clear image of a Teflon plate as well as the phase shift corresponding to the plate thickness. In another experiment, we confirmed that quasi-optical mirrors can produce multiple measurement chords; however, the finite spot size of the probe beam degrades the sharpness of the resulting image.

A method using a tracer-encapsulated solid pellet (TESPEL) has been developed to diagnose particle transport. TESPEL consists of polystyrene as the outer part and another material as the inner core. At first, it was confirmed at the compact helical system (CHS) that the tracer of lithium was deposited locally in the plasma. Moreover, the behaviour of the tracer particles was observed by charge exchange recombination spectroscopy. TESPEL was also injected into the large helical device (LHD). In this case, the Kα line of titanium was observed without the necessity of a neutral beam, and it was shown that this method is promising.

This paper reports on the behaviour of high-energy ions created by ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) heating on the Large Helical Device (LHD). In the third experimental campaign conducted in 1999, it was found that minority heating has good heating performance, and high-energy particles were observed. In the fourth campaign in 2000, the temporal behaviour of high-energy ions was investigated in the minority heating regime using turnoff or modulation of ICRF power. The time evolution of the high-energy particle distribution was measured using a natural diamond detector (NDD) and a time-of-flight neutral particle analyser (TOF-NPA). It was found that the count number of higher-energy particles declines faster than that of lower-energy particles after ICRF turnoff. In the modulation experiments, the phase difference of the flux of high-energy particles with respect to the ICRF power modulation increased with energy. These results were explained qualitatively by the Fokker-Planck equation with a simple model. The pitch-angle dependence of the distribution function was also measured in the experiment by changing the line of sight of the TOF-NPA, and an anisotropy of the high-energy tail was found. This anisotropy was reproduced by solving the bounce-averaged Fokker-Planck equation. The second harmonic heating was conducted successfully for the first time in the LHD in high-β plasma, and high-energy particles were also detected in this heating regime.

A multi-fringe phase detection circuit for a far infrared (FIR) laser interferometer of a fusion plasma experiment has been designed. The specification of this circuit is a follows, when the intermediate beat signal is 1 MHz, the phase detection range is 31 fringes with a phase resolution of 1/80 fringe, and the response speed is 10 μs. Because all phase comparison parts of this circuit are constructed of TTL ICs, the manufacture of this circuit is easy. It has been used to measure the electron density profile in the Large Helical Device (LHD).

A power modulation experiment was conducted in the third campaign of the LHD. In a conventional analysis of the modulation experiments, the energy confinement time and heating efficiency are taken as constant, disregarding their dependence on the plasma parameters. In this paper, their dependence on the plasma temperature and heating power is taken into consideration to improve the analysis of the power modulation experiments. Several models, with differing dependence on the plasma parameters, have been examined. There have been several reports suggesting that the transport coefficients obtained from the dynamical method are different from those obtained from power balance analyses. This paper finally concludes that the energy confinement time obtained from the power modulation experiments well agrees with that obtained from the power balance analysis, made including temperature dependence both in energy confinement time and heating efficiency.

The ICRF heating experiments conducted in 1999 in the third experimental campaign on LHD are reported, with an emphasis on the optimization of the heating regime. Specifically, an exhaustive study of seven different heating regimes was carried out by changing the radiofrequency relative to the magnetic field intensity, and the dependence of the heating efficiency on H minority concentration was investigated. It was found in the experiment that both ion and electron heating are attainable with the same experimental set-up by properly choosing the frequency relative to the magnetic field intensity. In the cases of both electron heating and ion heating, the power absorption efficiency depends on the minority ion concentration. An optimum minority concentration exists in the ion heating case while, in the electron heating case, the efficiency increases with concentration monotonically. A simple model calculation is introduced to provide a heuristic understanding of these experimental results. Among the heating regimes examined in this experiment, one of the ion heating regimes was finally chosen as the optimized heating regime and various high performance discharges were realized with it.

The energy confinement and thermal transport characteristics of net current free plasmas in regimes with much smaller gyroradii and collisionality than previously studied have been investigated in the Large Helical Device (LHD). The inward shifted configuration, which is superior from the point of view of neoclassical transport theory, has revealed a systematic confinement improvement over the standard configuration. Energy confinement times are improved over the International Stellarator Scaling 95 by a factor of 1.6 ±0.2 for an inward shifted configuration. This enhancement is primarily due to the broad temperature profile with a high edge value. A simple dimensional analysis involving LHD and other medium sized heliotrons yields a strongly gyro-Bohm dependence (τEΩ ∝ ρ*-3.8) of energy confinement times. It should be noted that this result is attributed to a comprehensive treatment of LHD for systematic confinement enhancement and that the medium sized heliotrons have narrow temperature profiles. The core stored energy still indicates a dependence of τEΩ ∝ ρ*-2.6 when data only from LHD are processed. The local heat transport analysis of discharges dimensionally similar except for ρ* suggests that the heat conduction coefficient lies between Bohm and gyro-Bohm in the core and changes towards strong gyro-Bohm in the peripheral region. Since the inward shifted configuration has a geometrical feature suppressing neoclassical transport, confinement improvement can be maintained in the collisionless regime where ripple transport is important. The stiffness of the pressure profile coincides with enhanced transport in the peaked density profile obtained by pellet injection.

Recent large helical device experiments revealed that the transition from ion root to electron root occurred for the first time in neutral-beam-heated discharges, where no nonthermal electrons exist. The measured values of the radial electric field were found to be in qualitative agreement with those estimated by neoclassical theory. A clear reduction of ion thermal diffusivity was observed after the mode transition from ion root to electron root as predicted by neoclassical theory when the neoclassical ion loss is more dominant than the anomalous ion loss.

During experiments in LHD using stainless steel divertor plates, a slow (~1 s) cyclic oscillation in the plasma parameters known as `breathing' plasma was observed during NBI heated long pulse discharges. Using an average ion, corona equilibrium model for the iron impurity cooling rate, the iron impurity density profile is calculated for 0.0

Since the start of the Large Helical Device (LHD) experiment, various attempts have been made to achieve improved plasma performance in LHD [A. Iiyoshi et al., Nucl. Fusion 39, 1245 (1999)]. Recently, an inward-shifted configuration with a magnetic axis position R_ax of 3.6 m has been found to exhibit much better plasma performance than the standard configuration with R_ax of 3.75 m. A factor of 1.6 enhancement of energy confinement time was achieved over the International Stellarator Scaling 95. This configuration has been predicted to have unfavorable magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) properties, based on linear theory, even though it has significantly better particle-orbit properties, and hence lower neoclassical transport loss. However, no serious confinement degradation due to the MHD activities was observed, resolving favorably the potential conflict between stability and confinement at least up to the realized volume-averaged beta of 2.4%. An improved radial profile of electron temperature was also achieved in the configuration with magnetic islands, minimized by an external perturbation coil system for the Local Island Divertor (LID). The LID has been proposed for remarkable improvement of plasma confinement like the high (H) mode in tokamaks, and the LID function was suggested in limiter experiments.

Pellet injection has been used as a primary fuelling scheme in the Large Helical Device. With pellet injection, the operational region of NBI plasmas has been extended to higher densities while maintaining a favourable dependence of energy confinement on density, and several important values, such as plasma stored energy of 0.88?MJ, energy confinement time of 0.3?s, ? of 2.4% at 1.3?T and density of 1.1 ? 1020?m -3, have been achieved. These parameters cannot be attained by gas puffing. Ablation and the subsequent behaviour of the plasma have been investigated. The measured pellet penetration depth estimated on the basis of the duration of the H? emission is shallower than the depth predicted from the simple neutral gas shielding (NGS) model. It can be explained by the NGS model with inclusion of the effect of fast ions on the ablation. Just after ablation, the redistribution of the ablated pellet mass was observed on a short timescale (~400?ms). The redistribution causes shallow deposition and low fuelling efficiency.

An ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) heating experiment was conducted in the third campaign of LHD in 1999. 1.35 MW of ICRF power were injected into the plasma and 200 kJ of stored energy were obtained, which was maintained for 5 s by ICRF power only after the termination of ECH. The impurity problem was so completely overcome that the pulse length was easily extended to 68 s at a power level of 0.7 MW. The utility of a liquid stub tuner in steady state plasma heating was demonstrated in this discharge. The energy confinement time of the ICRF heated plasma has the same dependences on plasma parameters as those of the ISS95 stellarator scaling with a multiplication factor of 1.5, which is a high efficiency comparable to that of NBI. Such an improvement in performance was obtained by various means, including: (a) scanning of the magnetic field intensity and minority concentration, (b) improvement of particle orbits due to a shift of magnetic axis and (c) reduction of the number of impurity ions by means of titanium gettering and the use of carbon divertor plates. In the optimized heating regime, ion heating turned out to be the dominant heating mechanism, unlike in CHS and W7-AS. Owing to the high quality of the heating and the parameter range being extended far beyond that of previous experiments, the experiment can be regarded as the first complete demonstration of ICRF heating in stellarators.

The large helical device (LHD) is the largest heliotron type superconducting device. Its operation was started on 31 March 1998. Three experimental campaigns have been completed until the end of 1999. Wall conditioning mainly by cleaning discharges using ECRF or glow discharges worked well even without high temperature baking. The plasma production with ECRH and auxiliary heating with NBI and/or ICRF in the LHD configuration equipped with open helical divertor were well performed. The divertor material was SS316L in the first and second campaigns, and was replaced by the graphite in the third campaign. The influences of the different divertor materials were investigated. Our understanding of the edge and the divertor plasma has progressed. Long-pulse discharges 80 and 68 s heated by NBI (0.5 MW) or ICRF (0.9 MW) have been achieved, respectively. No severe limitation of the duration has appeared.

In the large helical device (LHD) radiation profiles measured using arrays of resistive metal, foil bolometers are used to investigate the change in radiation resulting from a replacement of stainless steel divertor plates with graphite tiles between the second and third experimental campaigns. In particular, for the magnetic configuration of R axis = 3.6 m and at line averaged densities below 3 x 10 19 m 3 , a reduction of the radiated power fraction from 35% in the second campaign to down to 12% in third campaign was observed. Comparing similar shots (in terms of discharge parameters) from the second and third cycles the core (0 < r/a < 0.79) radiation fraction was reduced from 44% to 30% of the total radiation. Spectroscopic measurements show a corresponding decrease in radiation from iron. Comparing long pulse discharges the radiated power fraction reduced from greater than 67% during the density limiting oscillation observed in the second campaign to 20% during the third campaign with a reduction in the respective core radiation fractions from 63% to 37%.

Operational density regime of long pulse discharges heated by neutral beam injection (NBI) alone on the large helical device (LHD) is greatly extended by the replacement of stainless steel (SS) divertor plates with graphite tiles resulting in a remarkable reduction of metal impurity radiation. The plasma density can be controlled by gas puffing up to 6×10 19 m −3 . Particle balance is analyzed by a global particle balance equation for helium and hydrogen discharges with high density. For helium discharges, the plasma particle inventory can be almost completely accounted for by the integrated gas puff input. A strong wall pumping is observed for hydrogen only discharges and it is found that the recycling coefficient at the start-up of the discharge is less than 0.6. The recycling coefficient increases with the wall particle inventory and approaches unity for high wall loading (23 Pa m 3 ) .

We have developed and constructed an ECH system for the large helical device (LHD). The ECH system consists of 0.5 MW, 84 GHz range and 168 GHz gyrotrons, high voltage power supplies, long distance transmission lines, and in-vessel quasi-optical antennas. It has been improved step by step. At the third campaign of LHD experiments, three 84 GHz range (two 82.6 GHz and one 84 GHz) and three 168 GHz gyrotrons are operated and ECH power can be injected from four antennas vertically and two horizontally. This complicated system is remotely controlled and monitored by fully GUI (Graphical User Interface) control panels realized on PC via TCP (transmission control protocol) communication. Over 10 000 shots of gyrotron power have been injected steadily into the LHD during the experimental campaigns on this system. One line of the system (84 GHz line) is specially prepared for the experiments of steady state plasma production. Using this line, plasma sustainment for 2 min was successfully achieved by only ECH power. Injected ECH power was 50 kW with 95% duty factor. The electron density and temperature of the sustained plasma are measured to be 0.3–0.5×1018 m−3 and ∼650 eV. Ion temperature measured by Doppler broadening of the impurity radiation line was kept constant at ∼300 eV during RF injection.

The electron cyclotron emission (ECE) spectrum at the large helical device (LHD) is measured by a 14-channel grating polychromator. During standard operation, the polychromator monitors second harmonic frequencies (100–150 GHz). At sufficient high density, the second harmonic X-mode polarisation is optically thick and can be used to determine the temperature profile. However, the large magnetic field shear in LHD affects the ECE polarisation. This effect has been studied numerically. The wave polarisation was found to rotate in the laboratory frame. Eperiments have been carried out by means of a polarisation rotator in the diagnostic waveguide system, which confirmed the calculations. By a proper setting of the polarisation rotator, the rotation can be corrected and pure X-mode is detected. Temperature profiles have been measured successfully by the polychromator.

The second harmonic X-mode electron cyclotron emission (ECE) from high-density plasma (the electron density is more than 50% of the cut-off density) is analyzed taking into account the refractive index and the influence of polarization in low field operated large helical device (LHD) (the magnetic field B 0 =1.5 T). The density dependence of ECE is obtained and compared with the predictions of a theoretical model. It is concluded that the density dependence significantly influences the measurement of T e by ECE in LHD.

An electron cyclotron emission (ECE) diagnostic system has been installed on the large helical device (LHD). In LHD, the magnetic field profile has a peak near the plasma center, so the electron temperature profile of both sides can be continuously measured by the ECE system using two antennas. The ECE spectrometers are as follows, two heterodyne radiometers with the local frequency of 70 and 132 GHz, respectively, a grating polychromator and a Michelson spectrometer. The measurements are processed by the distributed data acquisition system. The angle of the magnetic field from the toroidal direction varies from −30 to +30° in LHD. It is found that the polarization of ECE follows the angle of the magnetic field when the electron density is high enough. The effect of the polarization is considered when the temperature calibration is performed. ECE is useful to distinguish small perturbations in the electron temperature profile, for example, to effects of a local island diverter.

For high density operation of the large helical device and for a future large plasma machine such as ITER, a powerful 57 μm CH3OD laser pumped by a continuous wave 9R(8) CO2 laser has been developed. The 57 μm (5.2 THz) laser light has been successfully detected by using a GaAs Schottky barrier diode detector with a corner reflector. For optical windows of the plasma vessel and the far-infrared laser crystal quartz etalons have been designed under a concept of a two-wavelength etalon for 119 and 57 μm lights.

A large helical device (LHD) experiment began at the end of March 1998. Fundamental and second harmonic electron cyclotron heating (ECH) are used as a plasma production and heating method with six gyrotrons whose frequencies are 82.6/84 and 168 GHz, respectively. Up to 0.9 MW power has been injected in LHD with long distance corrugated waveguide transmission systems. The maximum pulse width is achieved to 3.0 s/240 kW for the LHD experiments. Six antenna systems have been prepared at the horizontally and vertically elongated poloidal sections. The maximum stored energy using all six gyrotrons is 70 kJ at the averaged density of n e = 4 × 10 18 m -3 . The maximum central electron temperature T e0 = 3.5 keV is achieved at n e = 3 × 10 18 m -3 . The magnetic field structure in heliotron type devices like LHD, notably near the coil, is complicated. For this oblique injection, a wave is launched from the antenna, and then crosses the plasma in the complex field structure near the coil. The polarization ellipse of the wave is changed along the ray-path. The wave propagation in heliotron type devices has been analyzed in an ideal case that the magnetic field component along the propagation direction can be neglected. Even for perpendicular injection with our antenna systems, the field component along the propagation direction is not so small. Another treatment of the wave-propagation is introduced. Some calculations for the heating scenario with this treatment are shown.

A CO2 laser (λ=10.6 μm) imaging interferometer is designed for electron density profile and electron density fluctuation measurements on large helical device (LHD). The purposes of this diagnostic are reliable electron density monitor in high density operation (especially in pellet injection discharge), precise measurement of electron density profiles and observations of density fluctuations. By using a CO2 laser, refraction effect becomes negligible, and the interferometer promises to be free from fringe jumps at high density. We plan to get 5 mm spatial resolution, (56 ch for each of two 280 mm slab beams, 50 ch for one 250 mm and 16 ch for 80 mm crossed beam), 3×10−3 rad phase resolution and 200 kHz frequency response for the above purpose. And fluctuation will be studied within the wave number range of 7×10−3⩽k⩽0.6 mm−1.

The Large Helical Device (LHD) is the largest helical machine with superconducting coils. Key diagnostics issues for LHD are: (a) capability for multidimensional measurements because of the nonaxisymmetric toroidal plasma; (b) measurements of the electric field; (c) cross check of fundamental parameters using different methods; (d) advanced measurements appropriate for steady-state operation; and (e) a satisfactory data acquisition system. The design and research and development of plasma diagnostics were carried out taking these issues into consideration. As a result, the present status of diagnostics is described: diagnostics for LHD operation, fundamental diagnostics for plasma performance, diagnostics for physics subjects, innovative diagnostics and diagnostics for long-pulse operation. The LHD experiment started in March, 1998. Since then, the development of diagnostics has kept pace with the experimental campaigns.

Pulsed radar reflectometry is a suitable reflectometric technique with which to study the effect of strong magnetic shear for the polarization of microwaves in the Large Helical Device. Because pulsed radar reflectometry measures the delay time of the reflected wave, not the phase, X-mode and O-mode polarized waves can be distinguished. At a preliminary stage of X-mode operation it is found that the position of the ergodic edge layer is steady in spite of the increased density in the core region when a neutral beam is injected. If the electron density does not reach the critical cutoff density, the pulsed radar system could be used as a delayometer. The measured delayometer signal is almost in agreement with the numerical calculation under the assumption that polarization of the wave propagated into the plasma is decided at the edge region.

A new type of digital phase linearizer has been developed for real-time electron density measurement using a multichannel far-infrared (FIR) interferometer. The phase linearizer can measure phase shifts up to 640 fringes. The size of internal memory is 16 bits-2 Mwords and the sampling frequency of the waveform data is up to 1 MHz. The internal clock for the counter is selectable to 100 or 200 MHz and the frequencies of the input signals, i.e., the reference signal and the probe one, are around 1 MHz. In the performance test the resolution of the phase components is achieved at 1/100 fringes, which corresponds to the line integrated density of 9.0×1016 m−2. For real-time measurements the phase linearizer has digital-to-analog converter (DAC) output. The resolution of DAC output is 12 bits and the amplitude is ± 5 V. The density feedback system on the large helical device has been utilized.

Millimeter-wave imaging systems in the frequency range of 70–140 GHz have been developed for diagnostics of magnetically confined plasmas. The 70 GHz imaging system successfully measures time evolutions of both radial and axial profiles of line density and electron cyclotron emission (ECE) in a tandem mirror. The imaging system is being installed in Large Helical Device (LHD) at the National Institute for Fusion Science. In order to cover the frequency range of the second harmonic ECE on LHD, a new detector using monolithic microwave integrated circuit technology has been designed and fabricated. The detector consists of the integration of a receiving antenna, a down-converting mixer diode, and an intermediate frequency amplifier on a GaAs substrate chip. The heterodyne response up to 10 GHz was confirmed at 70–140 GHz. The optical system consisting of an ellipsoidal mirror and a flat mirror was designed by using a ray-tracing code and evaluated experimentally at 140 GHz.

A 14-channel grating polychromator for the purpose of measuring the electron cyclotron emission (ECE) spectrum has been developed and installed on the large helical device (LHD). The grating polychromator has a Czerny–Turner setup. The main advantage of the grating polychromator is that it has a broad spectral range. Hence, it can be utilized at different magnetic field strengths. Changing the angle or replacing the grating can do this. Gratings with a grid constant of d=2.3, 3, and 5 mm and a blaze angle of 20° can be applied and the scattered spectrum is directed to 14-liquid He cooled InSb detectors. Standard operation is performed with d=3 mm, frange=148–105 GHz. This is second harmonic ECE for B=2.75 T. Each channel has a spectral resolution of Δf (full width at half maximum)=2.6 GHz or f/Δf=60 at f=150 GHz. The properties of the instrument and first experimental results of LHD ECE will be described in this article.

A CO2 laser polarimeter to measure the Faraday rotation in the large helical device (LHD) was developed and installed on a LHD. A CO2 laser whose wavelength is 10.6 μm was selected to avoid effects of the refraction. The Faraday rotation angle along toroidally tangential chords is of the order of one degree. The polarimeter utilizes the frequency-shift heterodyne technique with the use of acousto-optic modulators for high resolution. This polarimeter can be operated with a maximum of three channels. The accuracy of the Faraday rotation angle with a time resolution of 16 ms is about 0.01 deg by digital complex demodulation. We succeeded in performing preliminary measurements of the Faraday rotation angle from LHD plasmas and the values were 10%–30% larger than those estimated with the electron density profiles from interferometry.