Direct electron heating and current drive with fast waves in DIII-D

Experiments on the DIII-D tokamak have been performed to evaluate noninductive current drive with direct electron absorption of the fast Alfven wave (FW) in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies. These experiments have employed a 2 MW 60 NM transmitter connected to a four-element toroidally phased array of loop antennas located at the outside midplane of the DIII-D vacuum vessel. Efficient direct electron heating was obtained with (0, [pi], 0, [pi]) antenna phasing; H-mode confinement was obtained with direct electron absorption of the fast wave as the sole source of auxiliary heating. Current drive experiments were performed with (0,[pi]/2,[pi],3[pi]/2) antenna phasing at fast wave power levels up to 1.2 MW. Preheating with 60 GHz ECH was used to increase the single-pass absorption of the fast wave with a directive spectrum. When the fast wave is lunched in the direction that aids the inductively driven current (co-current drive), up to 40% of the 0.4 MA plasma current is sustained noninductively. Counter-current drive strongly affects the sawtoothing behavior, and results in highly peaked electron temperature profiles (T[sub e](0) [approx lt] 6 keV) but much smaller driven currents.