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The addition of a divertor into the W7-AS stellarator has allowed access to a high density regime where the radiation profiles reach a steady state. In earlier limiter discharges, the plasma suffered a radiative collapse at high densities. In contrast to limiter experiments, where the impurity confinement time measured by Al laser blow-off increased with increasing line integrated density, in divertor discharges, above a density threshold, the impurity confinement time decreased with increasing line integrated density. The observation that the divertor plasma radiates mainly at the plasma edge rather than the plasma centre is a further indication that changes to the impurity transport coefficients at these high densities are the basis for the achievement of steady state discharges in the divertor configuration of W7-AS. The maximum line integrated density reached with a divertor is compared to that reached with a limiter. The previously derived scaling law for the density limit with a limiter shows that the achieved densities do not exceed those predicted when the higher deposited power is taken into account. In a divertor the radiated power is located at the plasma edge and increasing the density, cooling the plasma edge and radiating sufficient power to cause plasma detachment determines the density limit.

Density-limit discharges in the W7-AS stellarator, with constant line-integrated density and a duration of up to 2 s, were studied at three values of the toroidal magnetic field (B = 0.8, 1.25 and 2.5 T). The central factor governing the physics of the density limit in stellarators was demonstrated to be the decreasing net power to the plasma when the centrally peaked radiated power density profile exceeds that of the deposited power density. The process was further accelerated by the peaking of electron density under these conditions. In discharges with B = 2.5 T, simulations of the centrally peaked radiation power density profiles could be shown to be due to peaked impurity density profiles. Laser blow off measurements clearly inferred an inward pinch of the injected aluminium. These discharges had the electron density profile form found in the improved confinement H-NBI mode on W7-AS. The aim of producing steady-state discharges at the highest possible density in stellarators is naturally of special interest for reactor operation. Such a scenario has been best achieved in H-mode discharges, in which ELMs restricted the impurity influx to the plasma and an equilibrium in the plasma parameters with suitably low radiation power levels was possible. A density scan in ECRH discharges highlights the need to control impurity sources and choose electron densities well below the density limit in order that steady-state operation can be attempted in discharges without ELMs. A simple model of bulk radiation predicted that the limiting density should depend on the square root of heating power and this was experimentally confirmed. The magnetic field scaling of the limiting density found experimentally in this simple model will partly depend on the term concerning the radial profile of the impurity density, which in turn is a function of the diffusion coefficient and inward pinch of the impurity ions. Theoretical studies have shown that an assumption about the B dependence of the thermal conductivity leads to density limit scaling laws with an explicit B dependence.

Collective Thomson scattering (CTS) of electromagnetic radiation from thermal plasma fluctuations in principle allows the velocity distribution of plasma ions and its composition in the plasma to be measured. The use of powerful microwave radiation from gyrotrons opens new perspectives for the application of CTS, which is considered to be a promising candidate for alpha-particle diagnostics in reactor-size tokamaks with D/T operation. We have performed the first experiments at W7-AS with different scattering geometries to prove the applicability of gyrotrons for CTS. The experiments were performed with a 140 GHz gyrotron which is routinely used for ECRH, delivering a power of 0.45 MW. The receiver antenna and detection system for the registration of CTS spectra were especially designed for the scattering experiment. In backscattering experiments, which have inherently no spatial resolution, we have measured a transversely propagating, non-thermal lower-hybrid turbulence, which is driven by perpendicularly injected fast particles from a diagnostic neutral beam. The instability is excited by the beam ions under double-resonance conditions, where the LH frequency coincides with some harmonic of the beam ion gyrofrequency. For scattering geometries with the scattering wavevector not perpendicular to the magnetic field, thermal density fluctuations in the plasma were experimentally detected. The ion temperatures derived from these thermal spectra agree well with other diagnostics. A modified scattering geometry ( scattering) allows local measurements of the ion temperature and is considered a prototype for the design of a routine diagnostic for ion-temperature measurements.

An experimental overview on pumping and particle exhaust studies for deuterium as well as for helium and neon in the ASDEX Upgrade divertor tokamak is presented. Strong turbomolecular pumps connected to the divertor region allow effective pumping of all these gases. Deuterium, however, is pumped effectively by the carbon walls in ASDEX Upgrade which dominate over the external pumping. Noble gases are hardly pumped by the walls, and their pumping efficiency and exhaust rate depends strongly on their respective density in the divertor chamber, i.e. on the effectivity of scrape-off layer transport and divertor retention. Compression of helium and neon in the divertor chamber increases with the divertor neutral gas density, and in high-power, high-density discharges in H- or CDH-mode pumping is very efficient. Helium exhaust in these scenarios is sufficiently fast to fulfill the requirements for ITER or a fusion reactor.

A new maximum entropy approach has been applied to analyse three types of transient transport experiments. For sawtooth propagation experiments in the ASDEX Upgrade and ECRH power modulation and power-switching experiments in the Wendelstein 7-AS Stellarator, either the time evolution of the temperature perturbation or the phase and amplitude of the modulated temperature perturbation are used as non-linear constraints to the profile to be fitted. Simultaneously, the constraints given by the equilibrium temperature profile for steady-state power balance are fitted. In the maximum entropy formulation, the flattest profile consistent with the constraints is found. It was found that determined from sawtooth propagation was greater than the power balance value by a factor of five in the ASDEX Upgrade. From power modulation experiments, employing the measurements of four modulation frequencies simultaneously, the power deposition profile as well as the profile could be determined. A comparison of the predictions of a time-independent model and a power-dependent model is made. The power-switching experiments show that the profile must change within a millisecond to a new value consistent with the power balance value at the new input power. Neither power deposition broadening due to suprathermal electrons nor temperature or temperature gradient dependences of can explain this observation.