Tests of an ICRH Resonant Cavity Launcher with Faraday Shield

A resonant cavity antenna designed to be suitable for ion cyclotron heating in a tokamak has been bench tested. This antenna is a "discrete element" circuit designed to launch the fast magnetosonic wave in a magnetized plasma. The resonant autotransformer design allows matching to the transmission-line impedance. The tuning and matching properties of this antenna have been compared with a simple computer model. The effective transmission of various Faraday shields has been determined by measuring the change in Q of the antenna system with and without the shield. The test results show that the antenna behaves as predicted by a simple computer model and that coolable Faraday shields with high RF transmission can be designed.