The Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility, whose construction has started in Frascati (Italy), will be equipped with an ECRH (electron cyclotron resonance heating) system including 32 gyrotrons as microwave power sources. The procurement of the first batch of sources with 16 MW total power, based on 170 GHz/>= 1 MW/100 s vacuum tubes, is in progress and will be available for the first DTT plasma. The system is organized into four clusters of 8 gyrotrons each. The power is transmitted from the Gyrotron Hall to the Torus Hall Building (THB) by a quasioptical transmission line (TL), mainly composed of large mirrors shared by eight beams coming from eight different gyrotrons and designed for up to 1.5 MW power per single beam, similar to the TL installed at the stellarator W7-X. One of novelties introduced in the DTT system is that the mirrors of the TLs are embodied in a vacuum enclosure, using large metal seals, mainly to avoid air absorption and risk of arcs. The main reason is to reduce the risk of air breakdown, maintaining a pressure of 10-5 mbar far away from the Paschen minimum. The TL estimated volume is between ~70 and ~85 m 3. The direct connection of the TL to the tokamak vacuum vessel has been evaluated, and different solutions have been proposed in order to prevent a possible impact on DTT operations. The microwave power is injected into the tokamak using independent single-beam front-steering launchers, real-time controlled and located in the equatorial and upper ports of four DTT sectors. In-vessel piezoelectric walking drives are the most promising candidates for the launcher mirror movement considering their compactness and capability to operate in an environment with strong magnetic field under ultra-high vacuum. The DTT ECRH system design, presented here, is based mainly on existing and assessed solutions, although the challenging adaptations to the DTT case are considered.

One of the main goals of the Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility is to reach a ratio of power crossing the separatrix over the major radius of about 15 MW m - 1, as the one expected in DEMO. For this purpose, up to 45 MW of external additional heating power shall be coupled to the plasma, provided by Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH), Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating and Neutral Beam Injection. The foreseen total ECRH power installed at full power shall be 32 MW, generated using 1 MW/170 GHz gyrotrons, for 100 s. The present ECRH system foresees two launching antennas per DTT sector, based on the front-steering concept. The equatorial antenna is dedicated to plasma heating and current drive and the upper antenna to the stabilization of MHD instabilities. This paper focuses on the latest design concept for these two antennas and on the definition of the ex-vessel matching optics unit of the last section of the evacuated Transmission Line (TL). The design has been updated to be compatible with the insertion of CVD diamond windows, to separate the vacuum environment of DTT from the one of the TL. This choice requires adding corrugated waveguide sections between the last mirror of the TL and the first mirror inside the port, requiring some adaptation of the in-vessel optics and of the supporting structure. The possibility to modify the steering range for the launching mirror has been also investigated to be compatible with the new design of the first wall and for the upper antenna, to reach the q = 2 surface in the new plasma scenario.

The Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility is being realised in Frascati, Italy for the study of the power exhaust issues in view of DEMO tokamak. A multi-MW Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) system is foreseen with a first set of 16 gyrotrons at 1 MW and 170 GHz available for the first stage of operation; additional 16 gyrotrons with power from 1 MW to 1.2 MW are foreseen in a later stage for a total of up to 33.6 MW of ECRH at plasma. ECRH system itself is part of the 45 MW of external additional heating coupled to the plasma, provided also by Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating and Neutral Beam Injection. The Transmission Line (TL) is fully quasi-optical, between 84 m and 138 m long and will transfer power up to 1.5 MW per beam from the building hosting the ECRH sources to the Torus Hall. The main section runs in a straight elevated corridor at a few meters above the ground level. In order to have low power losses and a simpler and manageable system, the long TL run is made by four quasi-optical Multi-Beam (MB) lines each transmitting 8 beams via shared mirrors, similar to the W7-X Stellarator TL. The system is thus organised in "clusters" each one made of the 8 gyrotron sources and the respective transmission line and launchers. Avoidance of losses in air and microwave leaks is assured by a vacuum enclosure of the whole line with the use of metallic gaskets. Single-Beam (SB) transmission lines are foreseen at the beginning and end of the MB line, to cover the distance from the gyrotron to a beam-combining mirror and from a splitting mirror to the launcher. The optical design has to cope with space constraints in the building and inherent conversion losses at the reflection on metallic mirrors, whose number was minimised. First evaluations with the electromagnetic modeling tool GRASP and first concepts for the MB mirror cooling are reported.

The DTT tokamak, whose construction is starting in Frascati (Italy), will be equipped with an ECRH system of 16 MW for the first operation phase and with a total of 32 gyrotrons (170 GHz, >= 1 MW, 100 s), organized in 4 clusters of 8 units each in the final design stage. To transmit this large number of power beams from the gyrotron hall to the torus hall building a Quasi-Optical (QO) approach has been chosen by a multi-beam transmission line (MBTL) similar to the one installed at W7-X Stellarator. This compact solution, mainly composed of mirrors in "square arrangement" shared by 8 different beams, minimizes the mode conversion losses. The single-beam QOTL is used to connect each gyrotron MOU output to a beam-combiner mirror unit and, after the MBTL, from a beam-splitter mirror unit to the ex-vessel and launchers sections located in the equatorial and upper ports of 4 DTT sectors. A novelty introduced is that the mirrors of the TLs are embodied in a vacuum enclosure, using metal gaskets, to avoid atmospheric absorption losses and microwave leaks. The TL, designed for up to 1.5 MW per single power beam, will have a total optical path length between 84 m and 138 m from the gyrotrons to the launchers. The main straight section will travel along an elevated corridor ~10 m above the ground level. The development of the optical design reflects the constraints due to existing buildings and expected neutron flux during plasma operation. In addition, the power throughput of at least 90% should be achieved.

In this work the Electron Cyclotron (EC) physics performances of the EC system foreseen for the new Divertor Tokamak Test facility (DTT) are investigated using the beam tracing code GRAY on the flat top phase of the most recent DTT full power scenario. The whole core plasma region can be reached by EC beams with complete absorption, assuring bulk heating and core current drive (CD) for profile tailoring, and NTM mitigation in correspondence of the rational surfaces. A detailed analysis regarding modifications of the EC propagation, absorption and CD location due to density fluctuations caused by pellet injection is performed. The compatibility between the EC system and the pellet injection system is verified: the density variations due to pellet injection are foreseen to negligibly influence the EC performances, allowing the EC beams to reach the plasma central region for bulk heating and to drive current on the rational surfaces for NTM mitigation. Finally, the polarization variations originated by the angle steering foreseen for the operational and physics tasks accomplishment during the flat top phase of the discharge are assessed. Negligible power losses have been found keeping fixed polarization during the needed steering.

In the final configuration of the Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility, 32 front-steering launchers of the Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) system will be distributed in 4 sectors of the machine. Two different antennas are hosted in the equatorial and in the upper port of each ECRH sector, with 6 and 2 single launchers respectively. This setup will deliver up to 35.2 MW installed power to the plasma, making such ECRH system the most powerful ever implemented at the time of its completion. To comply with compactness and performance requirements, a fully in-vessel driving system has been proposed for the steering mirrors. The system relies on UHV-compliant piezoelectric walking drives to provide biaxial steering capability. The main drawback of piezoelectric drives is their low driving force, in an environment where magnetic torques can be very high because of variable magnetic fields, as those induced by the non-axisymmetric in-vessel coils for plasma control, and especially in case of disruption events. Therefore, the materials of the water-cooled steering mirrors must be chosen in such a way as to minimize magnetic torques while guaranteeing adequate heat conduction. Numerical and analytical models of the magnetic torques acting on the steering mirror have been developed. The models have been applied to the steering mirror to quantify magnetic torques due to various sources and dynamic regimes. The currently proposed Copper-Chromium-Zirconium mirror was proven to be critical. Therefore, compliance requirements for the mirror have been computed, and different solutions have been numerically evaluated for magnetic torque mitigation and heat conduction capability, including combination of different materials and implementation of a tungsten-coated dielectric mirror.

GyM is a linear plasma device operating at Istituto per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Plasmi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Milan, with the original aim of studying basic plasma physics, such as turbulent processes. Since 2014, GyM experimental program has been mainly focused on the issue of plasma-material interaction (PMI) for magnetic confinement nuclear fusion applications. GyM consists of a stainless steel vacuum chamber (radius and length of 0.125 m and 2.11 m), a pumping system, a gas injection system, 10 magnetic field coils and two magnetron sources at 2.45 GHz, capable of delivering a total microwave power up to 4.5 kW. Highly reproducible steady-state plasmas of different gas species, at a maximum working pressure of ~10-1 Pa, can be obtained by electron cyclotron resonance heating in the resonance layer at 87.5 mT. Plasmas of GyM have electron and ion temperature <=15 eV and ~0.1 eV, respectively. The electron density is in the range of 1015-1017 m-3 and the ion flux is <=5 × 1020 ions?m-2s-1. Main plasma diagnostics of GyM comprise Langmuir probes, an optical emission spectrometer, a mass spectrometer and a fast camera system equipped with an image intensifier unit. For the purpose of investigating the topic of PMI, GyM is provided with two sample exposure systems. Both are biasable at a negative bias voltage down to -400 V, to tune the energy of the impinging ions. One of them is also equipped with a heating lamp and can reach and sustain a temperature of 990 K for several hours, thus allowing to study the role of sample temperature during the plasma-material interaction. This contribution presents the layout of GyM, the diagnostics, the sample exposure systems and the typical plasma parameters. A brief overview of the main PMI activities carried out so far and a description of future machine upgrades are also given.

The DTT tokamak [1], whose construction is starting in Frascati (Italy), will be equipped with an ECRH system of 16 MW for the first plasma and with a total of 32 gyrotrons (170 GHz, >= 1 MW, 100s), organized in 4 clusters of 8 units each in the final design stage. To transmit this large number of power beams from the Gyrotron Hall to the Torus Hall Building a Quasi-Optical (QO) approach has been chosen by a multi-beam transmission line (MBTL) similar to the one installed at W7-X Stellarator. This compact solution, mainly composed of mirrors in "square mirrors configuration" [2] shared by 8 different beams, minimizes the mode conversion losses. Single-beam QOTL is used to connect the gyrotron MOU output to a beam-combiner mirror unit and, after the MBTL, from a beam-splitter mirror unit to the ex-vessel and launchers sections located in the equatorial and upper ports of 4 DTT sectors. A novelty introduced is that the mirrors of the TLs are embodied in a vacuum enclosure to avoid air losses, using metal gaskets to avoid microwave leaks. The TL, designed for up to 1.5 MW per single power beam, will have the total optical path length between 84 m and 138 m from the gyrotrons to the launchers. The main straight section will travel along an elevated corridor ~10 m above the ground level. The development of the optical design reflects the buildings and neutronic constraints and minimizes overall losses to achieve the target of max 10%.

The EU demonstration power plant (DEMO) Tokamak will be equipped with an electron cyclotron (EC) system for plasma heating and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) control. Up to six launchers will be installed into equatorial ports with the aim to inject maximum 130-MW millimeter-wave (mm-wave) power at dedicated positions into the plasma. The mm-waves will be generated in gyrotrons placed in a distinct building at distant location. From this gyrotron hall, a combined transmission line (TL) system of quasi-optical multibeam mirrors and individual waveguides (WGs) will propagate the mm-waves into the tokamak building. That followed, an optical system, composed of miter bends, diamond windows, valves, and microwave bellows, connects the TL through the gallery and the port cell with the EC launchers. This article presents the preconceptual computer aided design (CAD) of this latter section of the EC system. Based on its general scheme and the given WG trajectories, the model takes into account the available space in the port cell with respect to required clearance for supply systems, assembly, and maintenance. At the preconceptual state, the design includes CAD models of all relevant mm-wave components in realistic dimensions at a level of details, appropriate to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept.

The European DEMO is a pulsed device with pulse length of 2 hours. The functions devoted to the heating and current drive system are: plasma breakdown, plasma ramp-up to the flat-top where fusion reactions occur, the control of the plasma during the flat-top phase, and finally the plasma ramp-down. The EU-DEMO project was in a Pre-Concept Design Phase during 2014-2020, meaning that in some cases, the design values of the device and the precise requirements from the physics point of view were not yet frozen. A total of 130 MW was considered for the all phases of the plasma: in the flat top, 30 MW is required for neoclassical tearing modes (NTM) control, 30 MW for burn control, and 70 MW for the control of thermal instability (TI), without any specific functions requested from each system, Electron Cyclotron (EC), Ion Cyclotron (IC), or Neutral Beam (NB) Injection. At the beginning of 2020, a strategic decision was taken, to consider EC as the baseline for the next phase (in 2021 and beyond). R&D on IC and NB will be risk mitigation measures. In parallel with progresses in Physics modelling, a decision point on the heating strategy will be taken by 2024. This paper describes the status of the R&D development during the period 2014-2020. It assumes that the 3 systems EC, IC and NB will be needed. For integration studies, they are assumed to be implemented at a power level of at least 50 MW. This paper describes in detail the status reached by the EC, IC and NB at the end of 2020. It will be used in the future for further development of the baseline heating method EC, and serves as starting point to further develop IC and NB in areas needed for these systems to be considered for DEMO.

The launcher mirrors will allow the injection of microwave power from the gyrotrons in the plasma of the Divertor Tokamak Test facility, under construction in Italy. The active cooling of the elliptical M1 (curved and not-steerable) and M2 (flat and steerable) mirrors, both subject to a significant heat load, is investigated in this article. Several cooling solutions are analyzed: a spiral cooling for M1, both in a massive and in a lightened configuration, and also a radial-azimuthal cooling for M2, both in a massive and in a lightened configuration. Figures of merit are computed for the different configurations.

In any large device for research on magnetic confinement thermonuclear fusion, the window assemblies are essential to preserve the conditions for successful ex- periments and to guarantee adequate access for inspection and measurement. In ITER, the materials traditionally used for the windows will be exposed to an exceptionally harsh environment. Moreover, the systematic use of tritium as fuel would make any failure of the primary vacuum containment a particularly dangerous accident. It is therefore essential to understand the potential threats to the integrity of the windows assemblies and define a series of tests to ensure their properties and quality before installation. One specific hazard to the windows is the microwave radiation due to either heating schemes or specific diagnostics. A fraction of the stray radiation incident on the window leads to dielectric heating, which causes a thermal load. The potentially harmful consequences of such a thermal load on the window assemblies are: (i) excessively high temperature (risk of bonding melting) and (ii) excessive, heating rate (risk of cracking due to a high temperature gradient at the location of the bonding). In this paper the main causes of degradation, which could lead to failures under microwave loads, have been identified. A series of laboratory tests have been defined, to assess the quality of the materials and the assemblies, including the coatings for the absorption of the microwave radiation in the ducts leading to the windows. Complete testing procedures and an overview of the main facilities, where the assemblies and materials could be qualified, are also provided.

The Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) system of Divertor Tokamak Test (DTT) facility will feature up to 35.2 MW installed power. At the time of its completion, it will be the most powerful ECRH system ever realized. In full power configuration, 4 sectors of the tokamak will be equipped with equatorial and upper antennas with respectively 6 and 2 launchers each, for a total of 32 launchers, fed by 16 1-MW, 170-GHz gyrotrons and 16 1.2-MW, 170-GHz gyrotrons. The last mirror of each ECRH launcher should be independently steerable about two axes to provide the required operational flexibility. Due to the high number of independent launchers in a relatively small space, a compact driving mechanism is required. In state-of-the-art ECRH systems, out-of-vessel drives are connected to the steering mirror through long shafts or bellows. In this paper, we present the conceptual design of an innovative driving mechanism, which relies on in-vessel piezoelectric actuators and compliant hinges to meet compactness requirements, minimize system's inertia, friction and backlash, while maximizing positioning accuracy. The work includes a general overview of the system, the model of the semi-compliant transmission, the identification of candidate materials and the sizing of the driving mechanism.