A Pockels cell enabled heterodyne Phase Contrast Imaging diagnostic for detection of Ion Cyclotron Emission

This work describes a novel optical heterodyne detection scheme that significantly extends the frequency response of the Phase Contrast Imaging (PCI) method to detect electron density fluctuations in tens of mega-hertz frequency range. The system employs a variable frequency electro-optic modulator to allow operation at any frequency in the range 10–40 MHz without the need to re-align the system. The frequency coverage of the system makes it suitable to measure the radial structure of the electron density component of Ion Cyclotron Emission on devices having confining magnetic field of a few Tesla, thus extending the purely temporal measurements provided so far by magnetic probes.