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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
L. Esteban, M. Sánchez, J. Sánchez, P. Kornejew, M. Hirsch, J. A. López, A. Fernández, O. Nieto-Taladriz
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 58 | Number 3 | November 2010 | Pages 771-777
Selected Paper from Sixth Fusion Data Validation Workshop 2010 (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-9
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Interferometry is used for measuring line average electronic densities in fusion plasmas. The W7-X stellarator will employ a two-color CO2 (10.591 m) and CO (5.295 m) heterodyne-infrared interferometer as an electronic density measurement diagnostic. The frequency displacement is 40 MHz for the CO2 wavelength and 25 MHz for the CO, so these values will fix the heterodyne frequencies. Because the frequency gap between the two carriers is wide enough and the detector sensitivity is similar for both wavelengths, it is possible to use a single detector for the two signals; nevertheless, they should be split with filters. Traditionally, the intermediate-frequency signals should be filtered, downconverted to a lower frequency by the use of analog circuitry, and then processed. A new approach is proposed. The intermediate-frequency signals are directly sampled by means of high-speed analog-to-digital converters followed by a digital diplexer and a specific phase-meter processor implemented in a field-programmable gate array. Preliminary results from the W7-X infrared interferometer prototype, without plasma, are presented.