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The Collective Thomson Scattering (CTS) diagnostic will be a primary diagnostic for measuring the dynamics of the confined fusion born alpha particles in ITER and will be the only diagnostic for alphas below 1.7 MeV [1]. The probe beam of the CTS diagnostic comes from a 60 GHz 1 MW gyrotron operated in a ~100 Hz modulation sequence. In the plasma, the probing beam will be scattered off fluctuations primarily due to the dynamics of the ions. Seven fixed receiver mirrors will pick up scattered radiation (the CTS signal) from seven measurement volumes along the probe beam covering the cross section of the plasma. The diagnostic is planned to provide a temporal resolution of ~100 ms and a spatial resolution of ~a/4 in the core and ~a/20 near the plasma edge where a = 2.0 m is the nominal minor radius of ITER. The front-end quasi-optics will be installed in an equatorial port plug (EPP#12). A particular challenge will be to pass the probing beam through the fundamental electron cyclotron resonance, which is located in the port plug (R=10.3 m) for the nominal magnetic field Bt = 5.3 T. Hence, particular mitigation actions against arcing have to be applied. The status of the design and specific challenges will be discussed.

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In this paper we present the results of the R&D work that has been performed on avoiding electron cyclotron (EC) gas breakdown inside the launcher transmission line (TL) of the ITER collective Thomson scattering (CTS) diagnostic, due to encountering the fundamental EC resonance, which is located inside the port plug vacuum for the baseline ITER magnetic field scenario. If an EC breakdown occurs, this can lead to strong local absorption of the CTS gyrotron beam, as well as arcing inside the ITER vacuum vessel, which must be avoided. Due to the hostile, restrictive, and nuclear environment in ITER, it is not possible to implement the standard method for avoiding EC breakdown-a controlled atmosphere at the EC resonance. Instead, the CTS diagnostic will include a longitudinally-split electrically-biased corrugated waveguide (SBWG) in the launcher transmission line. The SBWG works by applying a transverse DC bias voltage across the two electrically-isolated waveguide halves, causing free electrons to diffuse out of the EC resonant region before they can cause an electron-impact ionisation-avalanche, and thus an EC breakdown. Due to insufficient experimental facilities, the functionality of the SBWG is validated through Monte Carlo electron modelling.

We present a novel method for efficient production of prototypes of microwave components by fused depositing modeling, also known as 3D plastic printing, and vapor deposition coating of a 1 μm copper layer. We demonstrate that the properties of the components follow the predicted performance for low power microwave propagation. The production method offers new opportunities for cheap and efficient production of mock-ups and prototypes of advanced-geometry components for tests with low-power microwaves.