On Wednesday, November 5, after validation of the final tests on the poloidal and divertor systems, the first plasma of WEST’s new campaign was successfully obtained.
On November 7, the first experiment of the campaign was carried out in collaboration with ITER. It aimed to test the performance of a tungsten coating on tiles mounted on WEST’s internal limiters.
In mid-November, several experiments are scheduled as part of EUROfusion’s Tokamak Exploitation Work Package (WPTE). One of these will aim to characterize the “I-mode” regime on WEST. This mode is characterized by improved plasma confinement without the appearance of ELMs (Edge Localized Modes). American and Chinese collaborators will join the CEA-IRFM teams to participate in these experiments.
The last four weeks of this campaign will be devoted to a new experimental phase called “High Particle Fluence,” similar to the one conducted during the C7 campaign in 2023. This time, the plasma will be in a high-radiation regime at the divertor with a low divertor temperature (~5 eV instead of 20 eV during the 2023 campaign). The objective is to study the growth of deposits on the divertor and compare the results with those obtained in 2023.
The campaign will end on December 19, 2025, and will be followed by a technical shutdown until mid-April 2026. During this period, several sections of the lower divertor will be removed for inspection and analysis following the “High Particle Fluence” campaign.
