Millimeter-wave system-on-chip advancement for fusion plasma diagnostics

Journal Article · Fri Aug 24 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Review of Scientific Instruments

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5035559· OSTI ID:1597426

Yu, J. -H. ^[1]; Chang, Y. -T. ^[1]; Lin, K. -Y.  ^[2]; Chang, C. -C. ^[3]; Chang, S. -F. ^[3]; Ye, Y. ^[1]; Pham, A. V. ^[1]; Tobias, B. J. ^[4]; Zhu, Y. ^[1]; Domier, C. W.  ^[1]; Luhmann, N. C. ^[1]

---

1. Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
2. National Taiwan Univ., Taipei (Taiwan)
3. National Chung-Cheng Univ. (Taiwan)
4. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Recent advances in radio-frequency system-on-chip technology have provided mm-wave fusion plasma diagnostics with the capability to overcome major challenges such as space inefficiency, inflexible installation, sensitivity, susceptibility to EMI, and prohibitively high cost of conventional discrete component assemblies as higher imaging resolution and data accuracy are achieved by increasing the number of channels. Nowadays, shrinking transistor gate lengths on fabrication techniques have enabled hundreds of GHz operation, which is suitable for millimeter-wave diagnostics on current and future tokamaks. The Davis Millimeter Wave Research Center (DMRC) has successfully developed V-band (55-75 GHz) transmitter and receiver chips for Microwave Imaging Reflectometer (MIR) instruments. The transmitter can illuminate 8 different frequencies simultaneously within 55-75 GHz. Moreover, the receiver has the capability to amplify the reflected signal (>30 dB) while offering 10-30× reduction in noise temperature compared to current MIR instruments. Plasma diagnostics requires ultra-wideband (more than 20 GHz) operation which is approximately nine times wider bandwidth than the recent commercial impetus for communication systems. Current efforts are underway for gallium-arsenide monolithic microwave integrated circuit receiver chips at W-band (75-110 GHz) and F-band (90–140 GHz) permitting measurements at higher toroidal magnetic fields.

• Research Organization: Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: FG02-99ER54531
• OSTI ID: 1597426
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1466444
• Journal Information: Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 89, Issue 10; Conference: 22. Topical Conference on High-Temperature Plasma Diagnostics (HTPD), San Diego, CA (United States), 16-19 Apr 2018; ISSN 0034-6748
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics (AIP)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION
System-on-chip
Microwave Imaging Reflectometer
transmitter
receiver