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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
D. J. Den Hartog et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 124-127
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11589
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Internal time-resolved measurement of magnetic field and electron temperature in low-field ( 1 T) plasmas is a difficult diagnostic challenge. To meet this diagnostic challenge in the Madison Symmetric Torus reversed-field pinch, two techniques are being developed: 1) spectral motional Stark effect (MSE) and 2) Fast Thomson scattering. For spectral MSE, the entire Stark-split H spectrum emitted by hydrogen neutral beam atoms is recorded and analyzed using a newly refined atomic emission model. A new analysis scheme has been developed to infer both the polarization direction and the magnitude of Stark splitting, from which both the direction and magnitude of the local magnetic field can be derived. For Fast Thomson scattering, two standard commercial flashlamp-pumped Nd:YAG lasers have been upgraded to “pulse-burst” capability. Each laser produces a burst of up to fifteen pulses at repetition rates 1–12.5 kHz, thus enabling recording of the dynamic evolution of the electron temperature profile and electron temperature fluctuations. To further these capabilities, a custom pulse-burst laser system is now being commissioned. This new laser is designed to produce a burst of laser pulses at repetition frequencies 5–250 kHz.