Upgrade of Thomson scattering system on VEST

Abstract A Thomson scattering diagnostic system was developed and successfully measured electron temperature and density of core plasma (R = 0.35 m) in Versatile Experiment Spherical Torus (VEST). However, the current system is able to measure only a single time point in a shot. Therefore, upgrade of the Thomson scattering system has been prepared and is in progress to obtain the time evolution. The upgrade is focused on three parts. First, the laser injection system is improved by introducing a burst mode laser with the energy of 2 J and repetition rate of 1 kHz for 10 ms. Furthermore, the laser injection optics is improved to minimize the optical loss. Second, minimum etendue limit of the collection optics is increased by employing a fiber bundle of three single-core fibers. Finally, a data acquisition system is prepared to record the burst laser signals for high sampling rate. Oscilloscope envelope mode is adopted and tested for measuring ten burst laser signal with 1.25 GS/s. Through the upgrade, the time evolution of electron temperature and density is expected to be measured in a single shot with enhanced signal-to-noise ratio.