Plasma heating via electron Bernstein wave heating using ordinary and extraodinary mode

Magnetically confined plasma can be heated with high power microwave sources. In spherical torus the electron plasma frequency exeeds the electron cyclotron frequency (EC) and, as a consequence, electromagnetic waves at fundamental and low harmonic EC cannot propagate within the plasma. In contrast, electron Bernstein waves (EBWs) readily propagate in spherical torus plasma and are absorbed strongly at the electron cyclotron resonances. In order to proagate EBWs beyond the upper hybrid resonance (UHR), that surrounds the plasma, the EBWs must convert via one of two processes to either ordinary (O-mode) or extraordinary (X-mode) electromagnetic waves. O-mode and X-mode electromagnetic waves lunched at the plasma edge can convert to the electron Bernstein waves (EBWs) which can propagate without and cut-off into the core of the plasma and damp on electrons. Since the electron Bernstein wave (EBW) has no cut-off limits, it is well suited to heat an over-dense plasma by resonant absorption. An important problem is to calculate mode conversion coefficient that is very sensitive to density. Mode conversion coefficient depends on Budden parameter (ñ) and density scale length (Ln) in upper hybrid resonance (UHR). In Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST), the optimized conversion efficiency approached 72.5% when Ln was 4.94 cm and the magnetic field was 0.475 Tesla in the core of the plasma.