Vertical electron cyclotron emission diagnostic on the tokamak à configuration variable

In this paper, a diagnostic for the measurement of the electron cyclotron emission (ECE) from non-thermal electrons in magnetically confined fusion plasmas is presented. The diagnostic employs a vertical viewing line of sight that allows us to directly infer the energy of the emitting electrons. Previous incarnations of this diagnostic on other machines have been limited by refraction, which can cause stray radiation to enter the line of sight, polluting the signal. By tuning the toroidal magnetic field on the Tokamak a Configuration Variable, TCV, and by carefully selecting the range of frequencies that are used to measure the ECE spectrum, refraction can be mitigated and background radiation power reduced to below the noise power of the instrumentation. A novel technique for calibrating the diagnostic based on plasma measurements and modeling has been developed. The paper will describe the Vertical ECE (V-ECE) diagnostic on TCV, the calibration method, and the first results from the measurements.(c) 2023 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).