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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.
Yuriy Divin and Hitesh Kumar B. Pandya
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 65 | Number 3 | May 2014 | Pages 399-405
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-713
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Electron cyclotron emission (ECE) from hot tokamak plasmas is recognized nowadays as a very informative diagnostic of main plasma parameters. Among several instruments developed to measure ECE, only a Martin-Puplett interferometer operates in a broadband frequency range of ECE from 70 to 1000 GHz. To derive the absolute radiation temperature of the plasma, a total measurement system, including front-end radiation collection, a transmission line, and the interferometer, is calibrated using a hot/cold calibration source. It takes a long time to calibrate the ECE system because of the high values of the noise equivalent power (NEP). A new technique, Hilbert-transform spectral analysis, is proposed for ITER plasma ECE spectral measurements. The operation principle, characteristics, and advantages of the corresponding Hilbert-transform spectrum analyzer (HTSA) based on a high-Tc Josephson detector are described. Because of the lower NEP values of the Josephson detector, this spectrum analyzer might demonstrate shorter calibration times than those for the Martin-Puplett interferometer. Because of a principal difference between Fourier and Hilbert transforms, the HTSA might have an additional advantage in retrieving harmonic ECE radiation from a continuous thermal background.