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The fission process still remains a main factor that determines the stability of the atomic nucleus of heaviest elements. Fission half-lives vary over a wide range, 10−19−1024 s. Present experimental techniques for the synthesis of the superheavy elements that usually measure α-decay chains are sensitive only in a limited range of half-lives, often 10−5−103 s. In the past years, measurement techniques for very short-lived and very long-lived nuclei were significantly improved at the gas-filled recoil separator TASCA at GSI Darmstadt. Recently, several experimental studies of fission-related phenomena have successfully been performed. In this paper, results on 254−256Rf and 266Lr are presented and corresponding factors for retarding the fission process are discussed.

In recent years gas-phase chemical studies assisted by physical pre-separation allowed for the investigation of fragile single molecular species by gas-phase chromatography. The latest success with the heaviest group 6 transactinide seaborgium is highlighted. The formation of a very volatile hexacarbonyl compound Sg(CO)6 was observed similarly to its lighter homologues molybdenum and tungsten. The interactions of these gaseous carbonyl complex compounds with quartz surfaces were investigated by thermochromatography. Second-generation experiments are under way to investigate the intramolecular bond between the central metal atom of the complexes and the ligands addressing the influence of relativistic effects in the heaviest compounds. Our contribution comprises some aspects of the ongoing challenging experiments as well as an outlook towards other interesting compounds related to volatile complex compounds in the gas phase.

The development of diplexers for ECRH has been pursued at a number of institutes because of their attractive variety of applications: Power combination, non-mechanical, electrically controlled switching (of combined beams) between launchers with tens of kHz, and discrimination of low-power ECE signals from high-power ECRH is feasible. In a first part, this paper reports on plasma experiments with a ring resonator (Mk IIa) at ASDEX Upgrade. Commissioning experiments on fast switching between two launchers for synchronous stabilization of neoclassical tearing modes, as well as in-line ECE measurements have been performed, and experimental issues and first results are discussed. A clear influence of the switching phase on the amplitude of the 3/2 NTM mode was measured, complete stabilization could, however, not be demonstrated yet mainly due to imperfect resonator control. Concepts for improved tracking of the diplexers to the gyrotron frequency are presented. In a second part, the design of diplexers with ring resonators matched to HE11 fields is briefly discussed; these devices can be connected to corrugated waveguides without any mode converters. A compact version (MQ IV) is under investigation, which is compatible with the ITER ECRH system (170 GHz, 63.5 mm waveguide, vacuum tight casing), with the final goal of high-power tests at the 170 GHz gyrotron facility at JAEA in Naka, Japan. First low-power test results are presented.

Sensitive millimeter wave diagnostics need often to be protected against unwanted radiation like, for example, stray radiation from high power Electron Cyclotron Heating applied in nuclear fusion plasmas. A notch filter based on a waveguide Bragg reflector (photonic band-gap) may provide several stop bands of defined width within up to two standard waveguide frequency bands. A Bragg reflector that reflects an incident fundamental TE11 into a TM1n mode close to cutoff is combined with two waveguide tapers to fundamental waveguide diameter. Here the fundamental TE11 mode is the only propagating mode at both ends of the reflector. The incident TE11 mode couples through the taper and is converted to the high order TM1n mode by the Bragg structure at the specific Bragg resonances. The TM1n mode is trapped in the oversized waveguide section by the tapers. Once reflected at the input taper it will be converted back into the TE11 mode which then can pass through the taper. Therefore at higher order Bragg resonances, the filter acts as a reflector for the incoming TE11 mode. Outside of the Bragg resonances the TE11 mode can propagate through the oversized waveguide structure with only very small Ohmic attenuation compared to propagating in a fundamental waveguide. Coupling to other modes is negligible in the non-resonant case due to the small corrugation amplitude (typically 0.05·λ0, where λ0 is the free space wavelength). A Bragg reflector for 105 and 140 GHz was optimized by mode matching (scattering matrix) simulations and manufactured by SWISSto12 SA, where the required mechanical accuracy of ± 5 μm could be achieved by stacking stainless steel rings, manufactured by micro-machining, in a high precision guiding pipe. The two smooth-wall tapers were fabricated by electroforming. Several measurements were performed using vector network analyzers from Agilent (E8362B), ABmm (MVNA 8-350) and Rohde&Schwarz (ZVA24) together with frequency multipliers. The stop bands around 105 GHz (- 55dB) and 140 GHz (-60dB) correspond to the TE11-TM12 and TE11-TM13 Bragg resonances. Experiments are in good agreement with theory.

Nuclides that are considered to be isotopes of element Z = 115 were produced in the reaction 48Ca + 243Am at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung Darmstadt. The detector setup TASISpec was used. It was mounted behind the gas-filled separator TASCA. Thirty correlated α-decay chains were found, and the energies of the particles were determined with high precision. Two important spectroscopic aspects of the offline data analysis are discussed in detail: the handling of digitized preamplified signals from the silicon strip detectors, and the energy reconstruction of particles escaping to upstream detectors relying on pixel-by-pixel dead-layer thicknesses.

A CW capable inline electron cyclotron emission (ECE) separation system for feedback control, featuring oversized corrugated waveguides, is commissioned on ASDEX upgrade (AUG). The system is based on a combination of a polarization independent, non-resonant, Mach-Zehnder diplexer equipped with dielectric plate beam splitters [2, 3] employed as corrugated oversized waveguide filter, and a resonant Fast Directional Switch, FADIS [4, 5, 6, 7] as ECE/ECCD separation system. This paper presents an overview of the system, the low power characterisation tests and first high power commissioning on AUG.

Control of Neoclassical Tearing Modes (NTMs) requires an accurate and low latency detection of the mode position. For a burning H-mode ITER plasma, simulations are conducted for both ECE detected via the equatorial port plug and along the line-of-sight of the ECCD launchers. Simulated ECE is detected using synthetic radiometers, with settings chosen to meet the required accuracy. A video bandwidth of 2 kHz is used which allows for an intermediate frequency bandwidth of BIF = 400 MHz for ECE detected via the equatorial port plug. For ECE detected via the ECCD line-of-sight, an intermediate frequency bandwidth of 1.5 GHz and 1 GHz for the 2/1 and 3/2 NTM respectively suffices for accurate location detection. For both ECE systems, the latency requirements for NTM suppression are fulfilled.