ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
Latest News
World Bank, IAEA partner to fund nuclear energy
The World Bank and the International Atomic Energy Agency signed an agreement last week to cooperate on the construction and financing of advanced nuclear projects in developing countries, marking the first partnership since the bank ended its ban on funding for nuclear energy projects.
Gary Taylor
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 2 | August 2007 | Pages 119-133
Technical Paper | Electron Cyclotron Wave Physics, Technology, and Applications - Part 1 | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1491
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Electron cyclotron emission (ECE) has been an important diagnostic for measuring the temporal evolution of the electron temperature profile in magnetically confined plasma devices for more than 25 years. Recent advances in ECE measurements, such as two-dimensional ECE imaging and ECE intensity correlation techniques, have provided detailed information on sawtooth reconnection, neoclassical tearing mode behavior, electron heat transport, fast electron dynamics, and fast particle-driven Alfvén eigenmodes. ECE spectral analysis is benefiting from improved ECE modeling and significant increases in computational power that allow fast, real-time, temperature measurements. Mode-converted electron Bernstein wave emission (EBE) diagnostics are being developed to study overdense (pe >> ce) plasmas, a regime where conventional ECE diagnostics cannot be applied and one commonly encountered in high- devices, such as the spherical torus and reversed-field pinch. While ECE diagnostic techniques are now well established on many existing magnetically confined plasmas, significant challenges lie ahead for applying ECE techniques to reactor-grade plasmas such as ITER, where Te(0) is expected to reach 20 to 40 keV. This paper reviews the recent advances in ECE, electron cyclotron absorption, and EBE diagnostics and discusses the challenges for ECE measurements on ITER.