Disruption mitigation using laser ablation of high-Z impurities in HL-1M tokamak

A preliminary experiment triggering a plasma current quench by laser ablation of high-Z impurities has been performed in the HL-1M tokamak. The injection of impurities with higher electric charges into tokamak plasmas can increase the radiation cooling of the plasma. Resistive, highly radiating plasma formed prior to the thermal quench can dissipate both the thermal and magnetic energies, which is possibly a simple and potential approach to reducing significantly the plasma thermal energy and magnetic energy before a disruption thereby a safe plasma termination is obtained.