PPPL-3745 is available in pdf format (274 KB).

Operation of the NSTX Thomson Scattering System

Authors: B.P. LeBlanc, R.E. Bell, D.W. Johnson, D.E. Hoffman, D.C. Long, and R.W. Palladino

Date of PPPL Report: September 2002

Presented at: the Fourteenth Topical Conference on High Temperature Plasma Diagnostics, July 8-11, 2002, in Madison, WI.

The NSTX multi-point Thomson scattering system has been in operation for nearly two years and provides routine Te(R,t) and ne(R,t) measurements. The laser beams from two 30-Hz Nd:YAG lasers are imaged by a spherical mirror onto 36 fiber-optics bundles. In the present configuration, the output ends of 20 of these bundles are instrumented with filter polychromators and avalanche photodiode detectors. In this paper, we discuss the laser implementation and the installed collection optics. We follow with examples of raw and analyzed data. We close with some comments about calibration.