Coupling and power handling of the new Tore Supra LHCD launcher

A new LHCD launcher, designed to inject 4 MW during 1000 s, has been installed on Tore Supra and successfully tested. A power of 3 MW with 7% power reflection coefficient has been reached. The coupling has been studied for various plasma parameters and positions, in order to study the robustness of the mode converter used in the antenna to divide the power into three in the poloidal direction. Due to the reduced electric field and the very efficiently water-cooled guard limiter, the temperature increase induced by the acceleration of electrons in the near field has been drastically reduced.