Design of optimized impedance transformer for ICRF antenna in LHD

A pair of ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) antennas in the large helical device (LHD), HAS antennas showed high efficiency in minority ion heating. However the low loading resistance must be increased to prevent breakdown in transmission line. Moreover, the voltage and the current around the feed-through must be reduced to protect it. For these purpose, we developed a design procedure of the impedance transformer for HAS antennas. To optimize the transformer, the inner conductors were divided into several segments and the radii of them were given discretely and independently. The maximum effective loading resistance was obtained by using all combinations of radii within the limitations of the voltage and current at the feed-through and the electric field on the transformer. To get a precise solution, this procedure was repeated several times by narrowing the range of radii of inner conductors. Then the optimized impedance transformer was designed by smoothing the radii of inner conductors. For the typical discharge, the voltage and current at the feed-through were reduced to the half of the original values with the same power. The effective loading resistance was increased to more than four times. High performance is expected in wide impedance region. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.