A study is made of the spectral distribution of the soft X-ray emission produced by the thermal part of the electron velocity distribution in the ST Tokamak. The slopes of the spectra are in good agreement with the prediction from laser measurement of electron temperature if radial profile effects are taken into account. The absolute intensity is a factor 5 to 100 larger than is expected for hydrogen bremsstrahlung. This enhancement can be quantitatively accounted for by recombination radiation from oxygen and heavy-metal impurities. The enhancement factor ζ was measured at different radii, in order to study the impurity distribution in the tokamak. These, as well as other experiments, in which high-Z gases (Xe, Kr, A) were pulsed into the discharge, indicated that, within the measuring accuracy, Zeff does not vary substantially with radius.

Transitions to the regime with better confinement in the L-2M stellarator are presented. Transitions are indicated only at sufficiently high plasma densities, and for a given value of average density they appear only at higher heating powers. Each transition is easily identified by a sudden fast (<200 µs) small drop of total plasma energy fixed by diamagnetic measurements. After that plasma energy steeply regains its value and then slowly monotonically increases up to the end of the active heating phase (just as the line average plasma density n e ). In the bulk of the plasma parameters evolve slowly. Drastic changes are observed in the region close to the plasma boundary where two moderate order rational magnetic surfaces are located with the rotational transform µ taking the values 2/3 and 3/4. Relative values of plasma parameters' fluctuations and their spectrum widths decrease significantly in this region. The region has a definite sandwich structure being subdivided by the above-named moderate order rational magnetic surfaces into three smaller zones with different plasma parameter dynamics. Transition is triggered by local disturbances of plasma parameters that are caused by instabilities in the vicinity of magnetic surfaces where µ is equal to 2/3 or 3/4. Different hypotheses on the nature of the phenomenon are discussed.

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ECR (electron cyclotron resonance) heated plasmas have been studied in the low magnetic shear TJ-II stellarator (R = 1.5 m, a < 0.22 m, B = 1 T, f = 53.2 GHz, P ECRH = 300 kW, power density = 1-25 W cm −3 ). Recent experiments have explored the flexibility of the TJ-II across a wide range of plasma volumes with different rotational transforms and rational surface densities. In this paper, the main results of this campaign are presented and, in particular, the influence of iota and rational surfaces on plasma profiles is discussed.