Portable Diagnostic: from ORNL to PPPL

Our team is mentioned in this press release from ORNL about the “traveling” high-temperature plasma diagnostic they are building:

https://www.ornl.gov/news/ornl-team-builds-portable-diagnostic-fusion-experiments-shelf-items

The ORNL diagnostic team
The ORNL diagnostic team

ARPA-E is supporting the development of several such portable diagnostics in tandem with their other fusion efforts, including our OPEN project. The ORNL team hopes that their “suitcase Thomson scattering” diagnostic will be on its way to us this summer!

When installed, it will measure the electron temperature and density profiles in the PFRC-2 experiment as a function of radius, as often as once per millisecond. The profiles measured will allow us to probe the internal structure of the plasma, but beyond that will also allow us to better interpret the results of our other diagnostics!