The MAST motional Stark effect diagnostic.

A motional Stark effect (MSE) diagnostic is now installed and operating routinely on the MAST spherical tokamak, with 35 radial channels, spatial resolution of ∼2.5 cm, and time resolution of ∼1 ms at angular noise levels of ∼0.5°. Conventional (albeit very narrow) interference filters isolate π or σ polarized emission. Avalanche photodiode detectors with digital phase-sensitive detection measure the harmonics of a pair of photoelastic modulators operating at 20 and 23 kHz, and thus the polarization state. The π component is observed to be significantly stronger than σ, in reasonably good agreement with atomic physics calculations, and as a result, almost all channels are now operated on π. Trials with a wide filter that admits the entire Stark pattern (relying on the net polarization of the emission) have demonstrated performance almost as good as the conventional channels. MSE-constrained equilibrium reconstructions can readily be produced between pulses.