Progresses in development of the ITER edge Thomson scattering system

This paper includes discussions of spatial resolution and accuracy of the edge Thomson scattering system in ITER (ITER ETS). In the present design, the dominant factor for spatial resolution degradation relative to the scattering length is aberrations of the collection optics. A scattering length of approximately 4 mm is acceptable to obtain a spatial resolution of 5 mm. Statistical errors were evaluated according to measurement accuracy. Since the background light during ITER plasma discharge is much stronger than the Thomson scattering, the laser pulse duration is one of the most crucial specifications to obtain accurate measurements. The impact of fast sampling relative to current integration was also investigated. It is expected that the measurement accuracy improves when the waveform of the scattered light is sampled directly particularly for low density measurement.