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The fast ion and α-particle diagnostic at JET is based on collective Thomson scattering of high power millimeter-wave radiation. The principal aim of the diagnostic will be the measurement of the spatially resolved velocity distribution of fast α particles when tritium is introduced in JET plasmas, although several other applications are foreseen. The diagnostic uses a 140 GHz, 500 kW, gyrotron as the source of probing radiation and a heterodyne detection system. The diagnostic came into operation during the last JET operational campaign. First measurements were made of the thermal and mildly suprathermal (induced by ion cyclotron resonance heating) ion feature. The results confirmed expectations, indicating that the diagnostic should give the predicted performance for observation of α-particle populations in the DT phase. The signal-to-noise ratio is limited by the noise on the background radiation (electron cyclotron emission), which has a minimum around 140 GHz only when JET is operated at B∼3.4 T. To further improve the S/N and to make the diagnostic suitable for operation at higher field, which is now being considered for some of the DT plasmas, a viewing dump will be installed before the DT phase.

High resolution frequency measurements of the 110 GHz gyrotron at TEXTOR and the 105 GHz mode of the two-frequency gyrotron (Odissey-1) at ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) have been made in support of fast ion collective Thomson scattering diagnostics. Measurements were done by harmonic heterodyne methods using both fast Fourier transform spectroscopy with digital oscilloscopes and fast scanning spectrum analyzers. Accurate frequencies were obtained with a frequency counter. At TEXTOR, at 180 kW forward power the starting frequency was 109.970 +/- 0.005 GHz and chirped down as much as 27 MHz depending on the duty factor. At AUG, at 500 kW forward power the frequency started at 104.786 GHz and chirped down 104 MHz, with 90% of the chirp occurring in the first 100 ms. Plasma perturbation of the TEXTOR gyrotron was observed when both ion cyclotron resonance heating antennas and neutral beam injection were operating, producing modulation at 29 and 58 MHz in the gyrotron output. Each gyrotron was observed to have an instrumental measurement limited linewidth of 120 kHz full width at half maximum. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.