Waveguide Bandpass Filters for Millimeter-Wave Radiometers

A fundamental requirement for most mm-wave heterodyne receivers is the rejection of the input image signal which is located close to the local oscillator frequency. For this purpose we use a bandpass filter, which for heterodyne receivers is also called an image rejection filter. In this paper we present a systematic approach to the design of a waveguide bandpass filter with a passband from 100 to 110 GHz and upper rejection bandwidth in the range from 113 to 145 GHz. We consider two non-tunable filter configurations: the first one is relatively selective with 11 sections (poles) whereas the second one is simpler with 5 sections. We used established design equations to propose an initial guess for the geometries of the filters, optimized the geometries, constructed the filters using two different milling methods, measured their transmission and reflection characteristics, and compared the measurements with numerical simulations. Measurements of both filters agree well with simulations in frequency response and rejection bandwidth. The insertion loss of the 11-pole filter is better than 10 dB and that of the 5-pole filter is better than 5 dB. The 11-pole filter has a sharper attenuation roll-off compared with the 5-pole filter. The upper out-of-band rejection is better than 40 dB up to 145 GHz for the 11-pole filter and up to 155 GHz for the 5-pole filter

Elevation angle alignment of quasi optical receiver mirrors of collective Thomson scattering diagnostic by sawtooth measurements

Localized measurements of the fast ion velocity distribution function and the plasma composition measurements are of significant interest for the fusion community. Collective Thomson scattering (CTS) diagnostics allow such measurements with spatial and temporal resolution. Localized measurements require a good alignment of the optical path in the transmission line. Monitoring the alignment during the experiment greatly benefits the confidence in the CTS measurements. An in situ technique for the assessment of the elevation angle alignment of the receiver is developed. Using the CTS diagnostic on TEXTOR without a source of probing radiation in discharges with sawtooth oscillations, an elevation angle misalignment of 0.9 degrees was found with an accuracy of 0.25 degrees

Tomography of fast-ion velocity-space distributions from synthetic CTS and FIDA measurements

We compute tomographies of 2D fast-ion velocity distribution functions from synthetic collective Thomson scattering (CTS) and fast-ion D-alpha (FIDA) 1D measurements using a new reconstruction prescription. Contradicting conventional wisdom we demonstrate that one single 1D CTS or FIDA view suffices to compute accurate tomographies of arbitrary 2D functions under idealized conditions. Under simulated experimental conditions, single-view tomographies do not resemble the original fast-ion velocity distribution functions but nevertheless show their coarsest features. For CTS or FIDA systems with many simultaneous views on the same measurement volume, the resemblance improves with the number of available views, even if the resolution in each view is varied inversely proportional to the number of views, so that the total number of measurements in all views is the same. With a realistic four-view system, tomographies of a beam ion velocity distribution function at ASDEX Upgrade reproduce the general shape of the function and the location of the maxima at full and half injection energy of the beam ions. By applying our method to real many-view CTS or FIDA measurements, one could determine tomographies of 2D fast-ion velocity distribution functions experimentally