First indigenously built tokamak ADITYA, operated over 2 decades with circular poloidal limiter has been upgraded to a tokamak named ADITYA Upgrade for the purpose having shape plasma operation with open divertor geometry. Experiment research in ADITYA-U has made significant progress, since last FEC 2016. After installation of PFC and standard tokamak diagnostics, the Phase-I plasma operations were conducted from December 2016 with graphite toroidal belt limiter. Purely Ohmic discharges in circular plasmas supported by Filament pre-ionization was obtained. The plasma parameters, Ip ~ 80-95 kA, duration ~ 80-180 ms with toroidal field (max.) ~ 1T and chord-averaged electron density ~ 2.5 x 10^19 m^-3 has been achieved. Being a medium sized tokamak, runaway electron (RE) generation, transport and mitigation experiments have always been one of the prime focus of ADITYA-U. MHD activities and density enhancement with H2 gas puffing studied. The Phase-I operation was completed in March 2017. The Phase-II operation preparation in ADITYA-U includes calibration of magnetic diagnostics followed by commissioning of major diagnostics and installation of baking system. After repeated cycles of baking the vacuum vessel up to ~ 130°C, the Phase-II operations resumed from February 2018 and are continuing to achieve plasma parameters close to the design parameters of circular limiter plasmas using real time plasma position control. Hydrogen gas breakdown was observed in more than ~2000 discharge including Phase-I and Phase-II operation without a single failure. Several experiments, including the primary RE control with lower E/P operation and secondary RE control with fuelling of Supersonic Molecular Beam Injection as well as sonic H2 gas puffing during current flat-top and Neon gas puffing for better plasma confinement are undergoing. The dismantling of ADITYA and reassembling of ADITYA-U along with experimental results of Phase-I and Phase-II operations from ADITYA-U will be discussed.

This article provides a concise methodology for the development of a cold atmospheric pressure plasma jet and its characterization. To optimize the plasma jet parameters for biological and industrial applications, it is highly necessary to thoroughly understand its characteristics. The major emphasis of this work is to utilize simple and advanced diagnostics systematically with low complexity in the post-data analysis and to obtain in situ information of plasma jet parameters. The detailed optimization methods and the effect of the applied voltage and gas flow rate to achieve the stable plasma jet of the desired dimensions are discussed. In addition, the effects of the gas flow rate on the discharge current profiles and filament behavior are provided. Moreover, optical techniques, such as optical emission spectroscopy and time-resolved fast imaging, are used for the characterization of plasma parameters, i.e., Texc and ne, in a simple way. The gas temperature along the length of the plasma jet is estimated using a K-type thermocouple. The discussed simple characterization techniques and range of parameters of our designed plasma source will be useful for the development and optimization of plasma jet sources for various biological and industrial applications. Furthermore, we have also discussed various applications where we can use the discoursed diagnostics for the system development as well as for characterization. As the characterization of cold atmospheric pressure plasma jets is a multiphysics study, this concise characterization report on the cold atmospheric pressure plasma aims to provide necessary information for early researchers.

Short bursts (∼1 ms) of gas, injecting ∼1017–1018 molecules of hydrogen and/or deuterium, lead to the observation of cold pulse propagation phenomenon in hydrogen plasmas of the ADITYA-U tokamak. After every injection, a sharp increase in the chord-averaged density is observed followed by an increase in the core electron temperature. Simultaneously, the electron density and temperature decrease at the edge. All these observations are characteristics of cold pulse propagation due to the pulsed gas application. The increase in the core temperature is observed to depend on the values of both the chord-averaged plasma density at the instant of gas-injection and the amount of gas injected below a threshold value. Increasing the amount of gas-puff leads to higher increments in the core-density and the core-temperature. Interestingly, the rates of rise of density and temperature remain the same. The gas-puff also leads to a fast decrease in the radially outward electric field together with a rapid increase in the loop-voltage suggesting a reduction in the ion-orbit loss and an increase in Ware-pinch. This may explain the sharp density rise, which remains mostly independent of the toroidal magnetic field and plasma current in the experiment. Application of a subsequent gas-puff before the effect of the previous gas-pulse dies down, leads to an increase in the overall electron density and consequently the energy confinement time.

An impurity ion toroidal rotation profile has been observed in the ohmic discharges of the Aditya-U tokamak from the Doppler-shifted passive charge exchange line emission of C 5+ at 529 nm. The line has been monitored using a space-resolved visible spectroscopy diagnostic consisting of a 1 m multi-track spectrometer coupled with a charge coupled device (CCD) detector. In typical discharges with central chord-averaged electron density ≲2.5 × 10 19 m −3 , the maximum toroidal rotation velocity at the plasma core is found to be −20 km s −1 in the counter-current direction. Reversal of plasma toroidal rotation is observed for high electron density discharges with a central chord-averaged density of ~5 × 10 19 m −3 . During the rotation reversal, the direction of toroidal rotation changes to the co-current direction in the core. Interestingly, in the discharges with a central chord-averaged electron density of ≲2.5 × 10 19 m −3 , where neon gas is injected at the plasma current flat-top, the toroidal rotation reversal has been observed after the gas puff.

Since the 2018 IAEA-FEC conference, in addition to expanding the parameter horizons of the ADITYA-U machine, emphasis has been given to dedicated experiments on inductively driven particle injection (IPI) for disruption studies, runaway electron (RE) dynamics and mitigation, plasma rotation reversal, radiative-improved modes using Ne and Ar injection, modulation of magneto–hydrodynamic modes, edge turbulence using periodic gas puffs and electrode biasing (E-B). Plasma parameters close to the design parameters of circular plasmas with H2 and D2 as fuel have been realized, and the shaped plasma operation has also been initiated. Consistent plasma discharges having I P ∼ 100–210 kA, t ∼ 300–400 ms, n e ∼ 3–6 × 1019 m−3, core T e ∼ 300–500 eV were achieved with a maximum B T of ∼1.5 T. The enhanced plasma parameters are the outcome of repeated cycles of baking (135 °C), followed by extensive wall conditioning, which includes pulsed glow discharge cleaning in H, He and Ar–H mixture, and lithiumization. A higher confinement time has been observed in D2 compared to H2 plasmas. Furthermore, shaped plasmas are attempted for the first time in ADITYA-U. A first of its kind inductively driven particle injection for disruption mitigation studies has been developed and operated. The injection of solid particles into the plasma core leads to a fast current quench. Two pulses of electron cyclotron resonance wave at 42 GHz are launched in a single discharge: one pulse is used for pre-ionization and the second for heating. In a novel approach, a positively biased electrode is used to confine REs after discharge termination. E-B is also used for controlling the rotation of drift-tearing modes by changing the plasma rotation. Cold pulse propagation and signatures of detachment are observed during the injection of short gas puffs. A correlation between the plasma toroidal rotation and the total radiated power has been observed with neon gas injection-induced improved confinement modes.