Theodore Biewer
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
ORNL team builds portable diagnostic for fusion experiments from off-the-shelf items
Oak Ridge National Labs (USA) have developed a portable plasma measurement system, built by Theodore Biewer and his team. Plasmas are a key technology for potential energy production (fusion research), propulsion systems and material processing.
The system will be taken to different experiment sites to measure plasma properties specifically the density of free electrons and temperature using Thomson scattering (elastic light scattering by charged particles).
The setup uses aberration corrected spectrographs (Isoplane-320) and intensified CCD cameras (PI-MAX4) for detection. Low aberration spectroscopy allows for simultaneous detection of multiple spatial locations in the plasma while the ICCD camera suppresses the background radiation of the hot ion gas.
