Initial operation of the first neutral beamline on EAST

Abstract The first neutral beam injector (NBI) system of the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) was installed in the spring of 2014, and the NBI initial experiments were carried out during the EAST operation campaign with its partial design capability. The maximum designed deuterium NB power and energy are 4 MW and 80 keV, respectively; an extracted beam full energy is mostly below 60 keV under the current EAST experimental conditions. The target plasma temperature is obviously increased with the NBI. L–H mode transitions are conducted by only NBI auxiliary heating. The pedestal formation in temperature profiles is observed through Thomson Scattering (TS) diagnostics. The NBI power can be modulated with different frequency and duty ratio has been also well checked.