Design and initial results of the imaging neutral particle analyzer in large helical device.

A novel Imaging Neutral Particle Analyzer (INPA) was newly installed in early 2024 to enhance the understanding of fast ion confinement on Large Helical Devices (LHDs). This diagnostic system, based on a magnetic spectrometer using a scintillator, provides energy-resolved radial profiles of confined fast ions by measuring charge-exchanged fast neutrals escaping from the plasma. The system utilizes a 100 nm thick carbon foil to ionize the fast neutrals, subsequently deflecting the ions toward a scintillator via the existing local magnetic field. The fast ion energy and sightline determine the position of the scintillation, while the light intensity depends on the flux of the fast ions. The INPA features two apertures, facilitating effective measurements in both clockwise and counterclockwise magnetic field directions in the LHD. This INPA was designed as a passive measurement system that measures fast ions charge exchange with background neutrals, focusing on perpendicular beam ions from 5 to 100 keV with an energy resolution of about 5.75 keV. This paper describes the details of the design, installation, and the initial results of the INPA on the LHD. This work will contribute significantly to a deeper understanding of fast ion transport due to magnetohydrodynamic instabilities.

The initial measurement of a compact D-T neutron spectrometer based on a single-crystal chemical vapor deposition diamond stack for fusion plasma diagnostic.

For developing and characterizing a novel compact D-T neutron spectrometer based on a single-crystal chemical vapor deposition diamond stack for plasma diagnostics toward future D-T fusion reactors, the initial measurement was performed using the accelerator-based D-T neutron sources OKTAVIAN at Osaka University. This neutron spectrometer was designed for the detection of 3-17 MeV neutrons and operated in the proton recoil telescope configuration by installing a polyethylene converter in front of the diamond stack. The measured neutron energy spectra were obtained by summing the energy of the recoil protons deposited in the diamond stack after the coincidence of the recoil protons identified by the time coincidence analysis. The neutron energy peaks measured by the compact D-T neutron spectrometer were almost in agreement with those obtained by the Monte Carlo N-Particle transport (MCNP) simulation. The energy resolution of the compact D-T neutron spectrometer was emulated to be about 4%-5% in D-T neutron measurement. In future work, the design of the compact D-T neutron spectrometer would be optimized to measure the fusion neutron for plasma diagnostics.