Effect of Ne Glow Discharge on Ion Density Control in LHD

Neon glow discharge cleaning was firstly attempted in Large Helical Device (LHD) instead of He glow discharge to remove hydrogen neutrals and to control the ion density, ni. The Ne glow discharge continued for 8 hours overnight after a three-day experiment. At the second night Hα emission became weaker than the emission usually observed in the He glow discharge. A clear reduction of the hydrogen influx was also observed in neutral beam injection (NBI) discharges with Ne puff, whereas the neon recycling was strongly enhanced with appearance of a flat density profile. As a result, the lowest density limit was further reduced down to 0.2 × 1013 cm-3. The use of Ar puff formed a peaked density profile with a high Ti of 7 keV.