It has been observed in the T-10 tokamak that immediately after off-axis electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) switch-off, the core electron temperature stays constant for some time, which can be as long as several tens of milliseconds, i.e. several energy confinement times (τ E), before it starts to decrease. Whether or not the effect is observed depends critically on the local magnetic shear in the vicinity of the q = 1 rational surface, which should be close to zero. It is hypothesized that a small shear can induce the formation of an internal transport barrier. Measurements of density fluctuations in the transport barrier with a correlation reflectometer show immediately after the ECRH switch-off a clear reduction in the fluctuation level, corroborating the above results. The delayed temperature decrease has also been observed in similar discharges in the TEXTOR tokamak; however, the delay is restricted to ∼1×τ E .

Compact 64-channel multiwire proportional chamber is successfully used on T-10 and TCV tokamaks as a continuous-current soft x-ray detectors. The duplex multiwire proportional x-ray detector is a new generation of these detectors. It has been designed for simultaneous multichord measurement of plasma soft x-ray emissivity in a two spectral ranges and determination of the electron temperature by the two-absorber method. The detector consists of two identical multiwire proportional chambers filled by 90%Kr+10%CH(4) gas mixture at atmospheric pressure. The first multiwire chamber has 64 channels. The second multiwire chamber (installed behind the first one) has 32 channels. Both chambers view the plasma through the one helium-filled slot-hole camera. Thus, the first multiwire chamber serves as an absorber filter for the second one. Such construction of the detector allows us in addition to soft x-ray measurements to provide measurement of the plasma core electron temperature with spatial resolution of about 2 cm and a time resolution of less than 50 mus. The construction of the detector and experimental results illustrating the potential of the diagnostic are presented.

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