ICRF antenna matching system with ferrite tuners for the Alcator C-Mod tokamak

Real-time fast ferrite tuning (FFT) has been successfully implemented on the ICRF antennas on Alcator C-Mod. The former prototypical FFT system on the E-port 2-strap antenna has been upgraded using new ferrite tuners that have been designed specifically for the operational parameters of the Alcator C-Mod ICRF system (∼ 80 MHz). Another similar FFT system, with two ferrite tuners and one fixed-length stub, has been installed on the transmission line of the D-port 2-strap antenna. These two systems share a Linux-server-based real-time controller. These FFT systems are able to achieve and maintain the reflected power to the transmitters to less than 1% in real time during the plasma discharges under almost all plasma conditions, and help ensure reliable high power operation of the antennas. The innovative field-aligned (FA) 4-strap antenna on J-port has been found to have an interesting feature of loading insensitivity vs. plasma conditions. This feature allows us to significantly improve the matching for th...