First GEM measurements at WEST and perspectives for fast electrons and heavy impurities transport studies in tokamaks

Soft X-ray (SXR) radiation emitted from tokamak plasmas contains very useful information about plasma stability, shape and impurity content, all key parameters to improve plasma performance. In the deuterium-tritium phase of ITER, the high neutron fluxes, gamma and hard X-ray emission will constitute too harsh an environment to permit the use of classical semiconductor detectors. New SXR detector technologies, more robust to such environments, should thus be investigated. First GEM (Gas Electron Multiplier) measurements performed at WEST were successful and showed that both spatially and spectrally resolved calibrated data could be acquired. Strategies to reconstruct tungsten (W) impurity radiation synthetic diagnostics, modelling and real measurements based on multiple diagnostics are proposed.

Automated summary

Soft X-ray radiation emitted from tokamak plasmas contains valuable information about plasma performance, but traditional semiconductor detectors cannot be used in harsh environments. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate new detector technologies that are more suitable for such environments, and propose strategies for reconstructing impurity radiation.