Effect of N2, Ne and Ar seeding on Alcator C-Mod H-mode confinement

The mitigation of divertor heat fluxes is an active topic of investigation on existing tokamaks. One approach uses radiation, both inside and outside the last closed flux surface (LCFS), to convert plasma thermal energy, usually directed towards dedicated plasma facing components, to soft X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, spread over a much larger surface area. Recent enhanced D-α H-mode experiments on Alcator C-Mod varied the ICRF input power and radiative power losses via impurity seeding to demonstrate that normalized energy confinement depends strongly on the difference between input power and the radiated power inside the LCFS. These investigations also show that when seeded with either Ne or N2, a factor of two and higher reduction in outer divertor heat flux is achieved while maintaining H98,y2 ∼ 1.0. Conversely, when seeding with Ar, confinement is limited to H98,y2 ∼ 0.8 for a similar level of exhaust power.