Internal transport barriers in tokamak plasmas are explored in order to improve confinement and stability beyond the reference scenario, used for the ITER extrapolation, and to achieve higher bootstrap current fractions as an essential part of non-inductive current drive. Internal transport barriers are produced by modifications of the current profile using external heating and current drive effects, often combined with partial freezing of the initial skin current profile. Thus, formerly inaccessible ion temperatures and QDTeq values have been (transiently) achieved. The present paper reviews the state of the art of these techniques and their effects on plasma transport in view of optimizing the confinement properties. Implications and limits for possible steady state operations and extrapolation to burning plasmas are discussed.

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Internal transport barriers in tokamak plasmas

The ITER neutral beam injectors are the first injectors to be designed to operate under conditions and constraints similar to those that will be encountered with a fusion reactor. The injectors will use a single large ion source and accelerator that will produce 40A D− 1MeV beams for pulse lengths of up to 3600s. The accelerated ion beams will be neutralized in a gas (D2) neutralizer which is subdivided into four vertical channels to reduce the gas flow into the injectors that is needed to produce optimum target for neutralization. These injectors will have to operate in a hostile radiation environment and they will become highly radioactive due to the neutron flux from ITER. The design has been modified recently to have a rectangular vacuum vessel with a removable lid that allows vertical access to, and maintenance of, the beamline components, the incorporation of an absolute all metal valve at the exit of the injector, the choice of a rf driven ion source as the reference design of ion source, and to have a high voltage deck incorporating the various auxiliary power supplies in air rather that under high pressure SF6. A major development is that it has been agreed that a Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) will be set up at Padua, Italy. The NBTF will consist of two test beds: one of which will be capable of operating a complete injector at full performance. The second will be an ion source test bed, which will be used for the development and testing, to full performance, of the large negative ion source.

Status of the ITER neutral beam injection system (invited)a)

Gas flow and related beam losses in the ITER neutral beam injector

Giant negative ion sources, producing high-current of several tens amps with high energy of several hundreds keV to 1 MeV, are required for a neutral beam injector (NBI) in a fusion device. The giant negative ion sources are cesium-seeded plasma sources, in which the negative ions are produced on the cesium-covered surface. Their characteristic features are discussed with the views of large-volume plasma production, large-area beam acceleration, and high-voltage dc holding. The international thermonuclear experimental reactor NBI employs a 1 MeV-40 A of deuterium negative ion source, and intensive development programs for the rf-driven source plasma production and the multistage electrostatic acceleration are in progress, including the long pulse operation for 3600 s. Present status of the development, as well as the achievements of the giant negative ion sources in the working injectors, is also summarized.

/pdf/negative-ion-source-development-for-fusion-application-3r7mh9hj35.pdf

Negative ion source development for fusion application (invited).

The Japanese large tokamak JT-60 has been focusing its research emphasis on the development of high performance plasmas, with high confinement, high temperature and high density and non-inductive sustainment for a long time with possible minimization of external power input. The first demonstration of high bootstrap current discharges up to 80% of the total plasma current in a high-poloidal-beta (high-βp) mode and the concept development of a steady-state tokamak reactor (SSTR) based on this experimental achievement initiated the so-called 'advanced tokamak research'. The internal transport barriers (ITBs), discovered in the JT-60 high-βp mode, have been followed by worldwide explorations of reversed shear discharges associated with ITBs. The highest DT equivalent energy gain of was achieved in the JT-60 reversed shear H-mode discharges. The highest ion temperature of Ti = 45 keV and the highest fusion triple product of ni(0)τETi(0) = 1.5 × 1021 m−3 s keV were obtained in high-βp discharges. Advanced tokamak research is now the major trend of the current tokamak development. A new concept of compact ITER has been developed and proposed in the context of this advanced tokamak approach pursued on JT-60. Prospects for burning plasma physics have been investigated along the progress made in these modern tokamak experiments on JT-60 and related computer simulation analyses.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0029-5515/45/8/026/pdf

Advanced tokamak research on JT-60

Intense negative ion source producing multimegawatt hydrogen/deuterium negative ion beams has been developed for the neutral beam injector (NBI) in TOKAMAK thermonuclear fusion machines. Negative ions are produced in a cesium seeded multi-cusp plasma generator via volume and surface processes, and accelerated with a multistage electrostatic accelerator. The negative ion source for JT-60U has produced 18.5 A/360 keV (6.7 MW) H− and 14.3 A/380 keV (5.4 MW) D− ion beams at average current densities of 11 mA/cm2 (H−) and 8.5 mA/cm2 (D−). A high energy negative ion source has been developed for the next generation TOKAMAK such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The source has demonstrated to accelerate negative ions up to 1 MeV, the energy required for ITER. Higher negative ion current density of more than 20 mA/cm2 was obtained in the ITER concept sources. It was confirmed that the consumption rate of cesium is small enough to operate the source for a half year in ITER-NBI without maintenance.

Negative hydrogen ion source for TOKAMAK neutral beam injector (invited)

To develop a high power negative ion source/accelerator for 1 MeV class neutral beam injector, hydrogen negative ion beam acceleration has been studied using a five-stage, multiaperture electrostatic accelerator. After conditioning each accelerator stage, the negative ions are accelerated to 1 MeV successfully with a drain current of 25 mA for 1 s. Cs was introduced into the ion source to produce higher current density. The highenst acceleration current density of 15 mA/cm2 was successfully accelerated up to an energy of 700 keV for 1 s, keeping the optimum perveance. The total acceleration current of 200 mA was extracted from nine central apertures 14 mm diameter each. A preliminary measurement of the heat load in the accelerator showed that the direct interception of the beam for the first grid and the third grid was negligibly small. The highest heat load was 4.5% of the input power at the second grid.

Hydrogen negative ion beam acceleration in a multiaperture five-stage electrostatic accelerator

A spatial uniformity of negative ion production has been studied experimentally in a tandem-type volume negative ion source, where the plasma is divided into two regions by a magnetic filter, i.e., a driver region and an extraction region near the plasma grid (PG). A plasma density profile and the negative ion beam profile were measured. By the Langmuir probe measurement, a strong nonuniformity of the plasma density was observed near the plasma grid when the plasma grid is biased electrically with respect to the anode. By changing the polarity of the bias voltage, the deviation of the plasma density profile changed to the direction of E×B. In the pure hydrogen operation, the extracted beam profile corresponded to the plasma density profile in the extraction region. In the Cs-seeded operation, on the other hand, the uniformity of the beam current density became uniform despite the nonuniformity of the plasma density profile in the extraction region. The uniformity of the negative ions corresponded to the plasma uniformity in the driver region. These results indicate that the negative ions are not produced by positive ions in the extraction region in the Cs-seeded operation. We conclude that the negative ions are produced mainly by neutral atoms produced in the driver region via the surface production on the PG.

T. Kitagawa

Papers

Negative hydrogen ion source for TOKAMAK neutral beam injector (invited)

Hydrogen negative ion beam acceleration in a multiaperture five-stage electrostatic accelerator

Spatial uniformity of negative ion production in volume negative ion source