The effects of density fluctuation on density profile measurements using a broadband frequency modulated reflectometer

Numerical simulations of frequency modulation (FM) reflectometry are carried out for the effects of density fluctuations on phase measurements. It is found that the fluctuation amplitude, the fluctuation frequency, the sweep time of a source, and the beat frequency of a mixer output play the important roles. The reliability of density profile measurement is investigated for various sweep times and local path lengths. It is demonstrated that the reconstructed density profiles seem to be improved when the sweep time is faster than 100 μs and the local path length is shorter than 1 m. The numerical simulations are compared with the experimental results obtained from a broadband FM reflectometer applied to the GAMMA 10 tandem mirror.