Analysis of nuclear‐radiation‐induced noise in spectroscopic and x‐ray diagnostics during high power deuterium–tritium experiments on the tokamak fusion test reactor

Abstract

Intense fluxes of 14‐MeV neutrons from deuterium–tritium (DT) fusion reaction in TFTR resulted in significantly enhanced background noise levels and reduced quality of data from the shielded UV (SPRED) and visible (VIPS) grating spectrometers and the x‐ray imaging system (XIS) camera. Both enhanced background levels, attributed to gamma rays and small angle neutron scattering, and large spikes, attributed to nuclear reactions in the silicon detectors, were observed. Both the enhanced background and the frequency of spikes were higher, on a per neutron basis, and the spike amplitudes were higher for DT than for DD operation. The VIPS shield reduced noise by 1/100 for DD radiation; the noise per DT neutron was 4 times higher than per DD neutron. The SPRED detector shield reduction factor was 1/12 in DD; extension of the shield around the vacuum chamber resulted in another factor of 1/5.5 reduction for DT plasmas. Spikes with amplitude up to 10 MeV were observed in the XIS detectors. The shielding effectiveness agrees with predictions. The spike heights are consistent with (n,p) and (n,α) reactions in the silicon detectors. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.