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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.
V. S. Burmasov et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 301-303
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11642
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Laser interferometry is an extensively used diagnostic for fusion experiments. Well-known problems of the method such as vibration, stability of the initial phase, a refraction and uncertainty in the phase shift are resolved in this paper as a result of the matching of the interferometer parameters with parameters of the GOL-3 multimirror trap. An initial phase of CO2 ( = 10.28 m) Michelson interferometer is controlled remotely with piezoelectric. The piezoelectric ceramics is also used to calibrate the interferometer. To exclude the effects of stray magnetic fields all elements of the interferometer is made of dielectric materials. The LN2 cooled HgCdTe photodiode is used for interferogram registration with time resolution of ~10 ns. The interferometer showed excellent performance with minimal maintenance.