Alternating current plasma operation in the STOR-M tokamak

Abstract

One cycle alternating current (AC) plasma operation without a dwell time has been achieved in the STOR-M tokamak with good reproducibility using a newly developed ohmic heating circuit. The plasma current of +24 kA is smoothly ramped down in 10 ms with a rampdown rate of around 2.0 kA/ms and then ramped up to between -20 and -24 kA directly without a dwell time. The plasma density of up to (3.7+or-0.6)*1018 m-3 remains at the current reversal as observed in recent soft landing experiments. The key to a successful, reproducible and direct transition in AC tokamak operations on STOR-M is to control both the total vertical field by a feedback control system and the plasma density by careful gas puffing during the current reversal phase. This experiment has demonstrated that the initial loop voltage for the second negative current is minimized when the dwell time approaches zero, and the AC operation without dwelling is possible whenever the plasma current can be softly terminated with a finite residual plasma density