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Updated: Jun 27, 2026

Characterizing Far-infrared Laser Emissions and the Measurement of Their Frequencies
Published on: December 18, 2015
CO2 laser polarimeter for Faraday rotation measurements in the DIII-D tokamak
M A Van Zeeland1, R L Boivin, T N Carlstrom
1General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, California 92186-5608, USA.
Abstract:
A tangential viewing, 10.59 microm CO(2) laser polarimeter for electron density measurements based on plasma induced Faraday rotation has been installed on DIII-D. The system uses colinear right- and left-hand circularly polarized beams with a difference frequency of 40 MHz to generate the necessary signal for heterodyne phase detection. The high-resolution phase information required to adequately resolve degree level polarization rotation is obtained using an all-digital "real-time" phase demodulation scheme based on modern digital signal processing techniques. Initial application of the system to DIII-D disruption mitigation experiments utilizing "massive gas jet" injection exhibits reliable operation and excellent agreement with CO(2) interferometer measurements; interestingly, the obtained Faraday rotation angles are in the range of those expected in ITER plasmas.
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