Applied physics
No. 5, 2002

Application of pulse time-of-flight refractometry for plasma mean density measurement in the T-11M tokamak

A. A. Petrov, V. G. Petrov

TRINITI State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation, Troitsk, Moscow region, Russia

The new method for measuring mean plasma density in magnetic confinement fusion devices - a method of pulse time-of-flight refractometry of plasma - has been realized. The method is based on measuring the propagation time of a short microwave pulses passed through plasma. For an o-mode wave with a carrier frequency much higher then plasma frequency, the delay time of a pulse in a plasma is proportional to the mean electron density and does not depend on the density profile. The main problem in such measurements is low accuracy of delay time measurements, and it was solved during development of pulse time-of-flight refractometer (TFR) in the T-11M tokamak. The experimental results obtained are described.

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