Motional Stark effect diagnostic pilot experiment for MAST

Exploiting the motional Stark effect (MSE) in the low magnetic fields of spherical tokamaks such as MAST is complicated by the Doppler smearing of the relatively closely spaced Stark components. Extensive modeling of MSE spectra and the subsequent polarized fraction (∼20%) of spectrally filtered light and signal to noice ratios have been performed taking account of real experimental conditions including neutral beam parameters, port sizes, optical losses, filter characteristics, etc. A design is selected which uses high throughput interference filters (0.1nm bandpass) for separation of the spectral components. An accuracy of ∼0.5° compared with typically 15° is estimated for field angle measurements. The design allows for early implementation, starting with a pilot two chord system, and for an economic expansion to a multiplicity of chords. Matching the Doppler shifted Dα from the beam neutrals will be accomplished by a combination of filter selection and fine-tuning of the beam voltage. Avoiding filter tuning in the design greatly simplifies the diagnostic. Calibration results of the diagnostic support the calculations.