This study explores the effects of plasma shaping on magnetohydrodynamic mode stability and rotational stabilization in a tokamak, including both plasma and wall resistivity. Depending upon the plasma shape, safety factor, and distance from the wall, the β-limit for rotational stabilization is given by either the resistive-plasma ideal-wall (tearing mode) limit or the ideal-plasma resistive-wall (resistive wall mode) limit. In order to explore this broad parameter space, a sharp-boundary model is developed with a realistic geometry, resonant tearing surfaces, and a resistive wall. The β-limit achievable in the presence of stabilization by rigid plasma rotation, or by an equivalent feedback control with imaginary normal-field gain, is shown to peak at specific values of elongation and triangularity. It is shown that the optimal shaping with rotation typically coincides with transitions between tearing-dominated and wall-dominated mode behavior.
Nanoscale spin-valve structures with a width as small as 70 nm were fabricated using nanoimprint lithography and ion milling or lift off. The spin-valve multilayers consisting of NiFe(10 nm)/Co(1 nm)/Cu(13 nm)/Co(10 nm)/NiFe(2 nm) were deposited using direct current sputtering. The effects of device size, as well as fabrication process on domain structures, switching fields, switching field variation, and giant magnetoresistive ratio were investigated using scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, magnetic force microscopy, and magnetoresistance measurements.
Excitation of Alfvén modes is commonly viewed as a concern for energetic particle confinement in burning plasmas. The 3.5 MeV alpha particles produced by fusion may be affected as well as other fast ions in both present and future devices. Continuum damping of such modes is one of the key factors that determine their excitation thresholds and saturation levels. This work examines the resonant dissipative response of the Alfvén continuum to an oscillating driving current when the driving frequency is slightly outside the edges of the toroidicity-induced spectral gap. The problem is largely motivated by the need to describe the continuum absorption in the frequency sweeping events. A key element of this problem is the negative interference of the two closely spaced continuum crossing points. We explain why the lower and upper edges of the gap can have very different continuum absorption features. The difference is associated with an eigenmode whose frequency can be arbitrarily close to the upper edge of the gap whereas the lower edge of the gap is always a finite distance away from the closest eigenmode.
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