Soft x-ray tomography measurements in the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator

Abstract

Abstract The soft x-ray tomography diagnostic in the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X consists of twenty pinhole cameras, up–down symmetrically arranged in a poloidal, triangular cross-section of the plasma vessel. The x-ray emissivity is measured with 16 bit amplitude resolution at 2 MHz sampling rate along 360 lines-of-sight by silicon photodiode arrays. In the recent operation campaign data acquisition (DAQ) has been working reliable for the conducted plasma pulse lengths <1 min, however the DAQ system are ready for the foreseen 30 min plasma pulse lengths of upcoming campaigns. The bandwidth of the preamplifiers is ≈200 kHz and the sensitive energy range is approximately 1–12 keV. The measurements indicate the up–down symmetric emissivity distribution in the triangular poloidal cross-section. First tomographic reconstructions of different magnetic field configurations are consistent with the theoretically calculated flux surface topology.