Plasma Current Measurement in Thermonuclear Fusion Reactors Using a Photon-Counting POTDR

Marc Wuilpart; Matthieu Aerssens; Andrei Goussarov; Philippe Moreau; Patrice Mégret

doi:10.1109/LPT.2017.2668765

Plasma Current Measurement in Thermonuclear Fusion Reactors Using a Photon-Counting POTDR

Marc Wuilpart, Matthieu Aerssens, Andrei Goussarov, Philippe Moreau, Patrice Mégret

Nuclear Engineering Office

Research output › peer-review

Abstract

In this letter, we present a fiber-optic current sensor for the measurement of plasma current in thermonuclear fusion reactors. The sensor includes a low-birefringence optical fiber placed around a section of the vacuum vessel that hosts the fusion reaction. The interrogating unit consists of a polarizationsensitive photon-counting optical time domain reflectometer that enables to determine the light polarization rotation induced by the plasma current. The measurement principle is demonstrated by means of the Jones formalism. The sensor has been experimentally validated on the Tore Supra tokamak fusion reactor for a plasma current range going from 0.6 to 1.5 MA. A maximum error of 13.50% has been observed for the lowest current.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	547-550
Number of pages	40
Journal	IEEE Photonics Technology Letters
Volume	29
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/LPT.2017.2668765
State	Published - 27 Mar 2017

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Cite this

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title = "Plasma Current Measurement in Thermonuclear Fusion Reactors Using a Photon-Counting POTDR",

abstract = "In this letter, we present a fiber-optic current sensor for the measurement of plasma current in thermonuclear fusion reactors. The sensor includes a low-birefringence optical fiber placed around a section of the vacuum vessel that hosts the fusion reaction. The interrogating unit consists of a polarizationsensitive photon-counting optical time domain reflectometer that enables to determine the light polarization rotation induced by the plasma current. The measurement principle is demonstrated by means of the Jones formalism. The sensor has been experimentally validated on the Tore Supra tokamak fusion reactor for a plasma current range going from 0.6 to 1.5 MA. A maximum error of 13.50% has been observed for the lowest current.",

keywords = "Plasmas, Current measurement, plasma measurements, optical polarization, optical sensors, fusion reactors",

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