Real-time fast ferrite tuning (FFT) has been successfully implemented on the ICRF antennas on Alcator C-Mod. The former prototypical FFT system on the E-port 2-strap antenna has been upgraded using new ferrite tuners. A new FFT system with two ferrite tuners and one fixedlength stub has been installed on the transmission line of the D-port 2-strap antenna. These two systems are able to achieve and maintain the reflected power to the transmitters to less than 1% in real time under almost all plasma conditions and help ensure reliable high power operation of the antennas. The loading insensitivity feature vs. plasma conditions of the innovative fieldaligned (FA) 4-strap antenna on the J-port allows us to significantly improve the matching by installing a carefully designed stub on each of the two transmission lines. The reduction of the RF voltages in the transmission lines has enabled the J-port FA antenna to deliver 3.7 MW RF power to plasmas out of 4 MW source power. The matching on the J-port antenna can be further improved by adding a single ferrite tuner under real-time control on each transmission line and this scheme will be implemented in the near future.
A real-time ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) antenna matching system has been successfully implemented on Alcator C-Mod. This system is a triple-stub tuning system working at 80 MHz, where one stub acts as a pre-matching stub and the other two stubs use fast ferrite tuners (FFT) to accomplish fast tuning. It utilizes a digital controller for feedback control (200 μs per iteration) using real-time antenna loading measurements as inputs and the coil currents to the FFT as outputs. The system has achieved and maintained matching for a large range of plasma parameters, including L-mode, H-mode, and plasmas with edge localized modes. It has succeeded in delivering up to 1.85 MW net rf power into H-mode plasmas at max voltage of 37 kV on the unmatched side of the matching system.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.