Recent development of LIF diagnostics in ASIPP

In this article, recent research progress of laser induced fluorescence (LIF) diagnostics in ASIPP is reviewed. The fundamental goal of ASIPP's effort on the LIF diagnostics is to develop a working velocity distribution function (VDF) diagnostic to monitor helium ash removal in burning plasmas. Real-time monitoring of helium ash VDF requires consideration in radiation safety, measurement response time, and compatibility of tokamak operation, as well as ion/neutral VDFs with a temperature at possibly >20 eV. These considerations, almost unique to large-scale instruments or specifically to tokamak plasmas, require renewed research and development (R&D) efforts in optical design, automation, and expansion of laser functionality for the LIF diagnostics that were often not considered in conventional applications of the LIF diagnostics. To this end, ASIPP invested a series of research effort into the development of LIF techniques. Signal evaluation has been performed on a diagnostics-test device (LTS), and the obtained signal strength has been extrapolated to tokamak edge and divertor relevant environments with promising results. The extrapolations compared the available solid angle and plasma density between the test device and the design scenario where the LIF diagnostics will potentially be implemented in a tokamak edge and divertor plasma. The estimation neglects the higher density of energetic electrons in the edge and divertor regions, making it a conservative assessment. Automated post-DAQ processing of LIF signals using both "conventional" methods and an AI-augmented method were also explored. Both approaches yielded usable results, but the AI-trained method showed a faster response, which is advantageous for real-time plasma diagnostics. Basic mechanisms of LIF diagnostics were also explored. Specifically, the limitations of lock-in modulation was demonstrated to determine the limitation of time-resolved measurements using such methods. De-modulation and degradation of the LIF signal occurred as the modulation frequency exceeded 1/10th of the fluorescence frequency. This finding sets a practical limit of the modulation frequency up to which we can benefit from lock-in amplification. These published works along with other unpublished progress will be thoroughly discussed in this article to illustrate ASIPP's effort towards the implementation of LIF diagnostics in future tokamak devices and to promote the application of LIF diagnostics in other fields of research.