Plasma density gradient measurement using laser deflection

For a given chord through a plasma, changes in the line integrated index of refraction as a result of a transverse density gradient can be observed by measuring the angle of deflection of a laser beam. In contrast to laser interferometers, this method of density profile measurement places modest requirements on laser quality and alignment procedures, allowing measurements to be conducted with short coherence length commercial laser diodes and segmented photodiode detectors. A prototype implementation of this scheme has been constructed and tested on the compact toroid injection experiment (CTIX). At densities comparable to magnetic fusion plasmas, laser deflections in the nanoradian range were measured. By assuming a particular density profile, a sensitivity of similar to 10(12) cm(-3)/nrad was obtained. This produced estimates of CTIX peak density in reasonable agreement with conventional interferometry data. The final goal of this diagnostic is a simple, reliable, array deployable density profile diagnostic. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.