Fast camera imaging of dust in the DIII-D tokamak

Naturally occurring and injected dust particles are observed in the DIII-D tokamak in the outer midplane scrape-off-layer (SOL) using a visible fast-framing camera, and the size of dust particles is estimated using the observed particle lifetime and theoretical ablation rate of a carbon sphere. Using this method, the lower limit of detected dust radius is ∼3 μm and particles with inferred radius as large as ∼1 mm are observed. Dust particle 2D velocities range from approximately 10 to 300 m/s with velocities inversely correlated with dust size. Pre-characterized 2–4 μm diameter diamond dust particles are introduced at the lower divertor in an ELMing H-mode discharge using the divertor materials evaluation system (DiMES), and these particles are found to be at the lower size limit of detection using the camera with resolution of ∼0.2 cm2 per pixel and exposure time of 330 μs.