A critical challenge facing the basic long-pulse high-confinement operation scenario (H mode) for ITER is to control a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instability, known as the edge localized mode (ELM), which leads to cyclical high peak heat and particle fluxes at the plasma facing components. A breakthrough is made in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak in achieving a new steady-state H mode without the presence of ELMs for a duration exceeding hundreds of energy confinement times, by using a novel technique of continuous real-time injection of a lithium (Li) aerosol into the edge plasma. The steady-state ELM-free H mode is accompanied by a strong edge coherent MHD mode (ECM) at a frequency of 35-40 kHz with a poloidal wavelength of 10.2 cm in the ion diamagnetic drift direction, providing continuous heat and particle exhaust, thus preventing the transient heat deposition on plasma facing components and impurity accumulation in the confined plasma. It is truly remarkable that Li injection appears to promote the growth of the ECM, owing to the increase in Li concentration and hence collisionality at the edge, as predicted by GYRO simulations. This new steady-state ELM-free H-mode regime, enabled by real-time Li injection, may open a new avenue for next-step fusion development.

Reductions in H content and particle recycling are important for the improvement of ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) minority heating efficiency and the enhancement of plasma performance of the EAST superconducting tokamak. During recent years several techniques of surface conditioning such as baking, glow discharge cleaning/ICRF discharge cleaning, surface coatings, such as boronization, siliconization and lithium coating, have all been attempted in order to reduce the H/(H+D) ratio and particle recycling in EAST. Even though boronization and siliconization were both reasonably effective methods to improve plasma performance, lithium coatings were observed to reduce the H content and particle recycling to levels low enough to allow the attainment of enhanced plasma parameters and operating modes on EAST. For example, by accomplishing lithium coating using either vacuum evaporation or the real-time injection of fine lithium powder, the H/(H+D) ratio could be routinely decreased to about 5%, which significantly improved ICRF minority heating efficiency during the autumn campaign of 2010. Due to the reduced H/(H+D) ratio and lower particle recycling, and a reduced H-mode power threshold, improved plasma confinement and the first EAST H-mode plasma were obtained. Furthermore, with increasing accumulation of deposited lithium, several new milestones of EAST performance, such as a 6.4 s-long H-mode, a 100 s-long plasma duration and a 1 MA plasma current, were achieved in the 2010 autumn campaign.

The first results of edge-localized mode (ELM) pacing using small spherical lithium granules injected mechanically into H-mode discharges are reported. Triggering of ELMs was accomplished using a simple rotating impeller to inject sub-millimetre size granules at speeds of a few tens of meters per second into the outer midplane of the EAST fusion device. During the injection phase, ELMs were triggered with near 100% efficiency and the amplitude of the induced ELMs as measured by Dα was clearly reduced compared to contemporaneous naturally occurring ELMs. In addition, a wide range of granule penetration depths was observed. Moreover, a substantial fraction of the injected granules appeared to penetrate up to 50% deeper than the 3 cm nominal EAST H-mode pedestal width. The observed granule penetration was, however, less deep than suggested by ablation modelling carried out after the experiment. The observation that ELMs can be triggered using the injection of something other than frozen hydrogenic pellets allows for the contemplation of lithium or beryllium-based ELM pace-making on future fusion devices. This change in triggering paradigm would allow for the decoupling of the ELM-triggering process from the plasma-fuelling process which is currently a limitation on the performance of hydrogen-based ELM mitigation by injected pellets.