RFX X-RAY PULSE-HEIGHT ANALYSIS SYSTEM

The x-ray pulse height analysis diagnostic designed and built for the RFX reversed field pinch experiment is presented. The system is designed so as to be sensitive over a wide range of RFX operational conditions (100 eV <=Te <= 2 keV). An array of three liquid N2 cooled Si(Li) detectors looks at the plasma through an equatorial port of the torus and can be tilted ±20° off the plane in order to scan over the central half of the minor diameter on a shot-to-shot basis. A second windowless single detector views the plasma along a fixed chord through a second equatorial port and is sensitive to x-ray energies as low as 500 eV. Commercial electronics are mostly used. The throughput is limited only by the shaping amplifier and pulse pileup rejector. Software simulation of the x-ray flux, including the pulse pileup rejection procedure of the electronic chain, was used to dimension the diagnostic, i.e., number of detectors, size of the apertures, and filter combinations. Preliminary tests indicate 20 ms as a realistic target for the electron temperature time resolution, reducible to 5 ms when all of the four detectors are addressed to the same properly chosen x-ray energy region.