Imaging system for hypervelocity dust injection diagnostic on NSTX

The novel hypervelocity dust injection diagnostic will facilitate our understanding of basic aspects of dust-plasma interaction and magnetic field topology in fusion plasma devices, by observing “comet tails” associated with the injected micron-size dust particles. A single projection of the tail onto an image plane will not provide sufficient information; therefore, we plan to use two views, with intensified DiCam-Pro cameras on two NSTX ports. Each camera can furnish up to five overlaying sequential images with gate times greater than 3ns and 1280×1024pixel resolution. A coherent fiber bundle with 1500×1200 fibers will relay the image from an imaging lens installed directly on the port to the camera optics. The lens receives light from the outer portion of the NSTX cross section and focuses a 1cm tail onto at least 60 fibers for adequate resolution. The estimated number of photons received by the camera indicates signal-to-noise ratios of 102–104, with the use of a 10nm bandwidth filter. The imaging system with one camera was successfully tested on NSTX in 2005. Photographing lithium pellets yielded bright and distinctive pictures of the tails nearly aligned with B lines. We also observed that the bright “filaments”—plasma cords with high density and temperature—are present in both top and bottom portions of the machine.