Movable multi-probes for plasma boundary measurement in sino-united spherical tokamak

A novel movable multi-probes is developed to get local magnetic and electrostatic profiles on Sino-UNIted Spherical Tokamak (SUNIST). This multi-probes combines a four-tips Langmuir probe, a magnetic coil, and a retarding field energy analyzer (RFEA). It can be used to simultaneously measure the poloidal magnetic field Bp, electric field Er, electron temperature Te, electron density ne, and ion temperature Ti. Its small overall size (20 × 20 × 38 mm(3)) enables the movable multi-probes to measure the magnetic and electrostatic profiles in high spatial resolution, with negligible impact to plasma in SUNIST. This paper presents the design of the movable multi-probes, in particular, details of RFEA for reliable ion energy measurements. Preliminary experimental results of the movable multi-probes are given as well.