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AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the United States Department of Energy
InventorsThomas H. Stix, Masayuki Ono
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An apparatus and method for maintaining a steady-state current in a toroidal magnetically confined plasma. An electric current is generated in an edge region at or near the outermost good magnetic surface of the toroidal plasma. The edge current is generated in a direction parallel to the flow of current in the main plasma and such that its current density is greater than the average density of the main plasma current. The current flow in the edge region is maintained in a direction parallel to the main current for a period of one or two of its characteristic decay times. Current from the edge region will penetrate radially into the plasma and augment the main plasma current through the mechanism of anomalous viscosity. In another aspect of the invention, current flow driven between a cathode and an anode is used to establish a start-up plasma current. The plasma-current channel is magnetically detached from the electrodes, leaving a plasma magnetically insulated from contact with any material obstructions including the cathode and anode.
In a tokamak, which includes a toroidal vacuum chamber and a magnetically confined main plasma disposed therein, and a scrape-off region disposed between said main plasma and said vacuum chamber, said main plasma having an edge region and a main current, wherein the improvement comprises:
A method for maintaining a steady-state toroidal plasma current in a tokamak , said tokamak including a toroidal vacuum chamber and a magnetically confined main plasma disposed therein, and a scrape-off region disposed between said main plasma and said vacuum chamber, main plasma having an edge region and a main current, which comprises the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.