Since the 2018 IAEA-FEC conference, in addition to expanding the parameter horizons of the ADITYA-U machine, emphasis has been given to dedicated experiments on inductively driven particle injection (IPI) for disruption studies, runaway electron (RE) dynamics and mitigation, plasma rotation reversal, radiative-improved modes using Ne and Ar injection, modulation of magneto–hydrodynamic modes, edge turbulence using periodic gas puffs and electrode biasing (E-B). Plasma parameters close to the design parameters of circular plasmas with H₂ and D₂ as fuel have been realized, and the shaped plasma operation has also been initiated. Consistent plasma discharges having I _P ∼ 100–210 kA, t ∼ 300–400 ms, n _e ∼ 3–6 × 10¹⁹ m⁻³, core T _e ∼ 300–500 eV were achieved with a maximum B _T of ∼1.5 T. The enhanced plasma parameters are the outcome of repeated cycles of baking (135 °C), followed by extensive wall conditioning, which includes pulsed glow discharge cleaning in H, He and Ar–H mixture, and lithiumization. A higher confinement time has been observed in D₂ compared to H₂ plasmas. Furthermore, shaped plasmas are attempted for the first time in ADITYA-U. A first of its kind inductively driven particle injection for disruption mitigation studies has been developed and operated. The injection of solid particles into the plasma core leads to a fast current quench. Two pulses of electron cyclotron resonance wave at 42 GHz are launched in a single discharge: one pulse is used for pre-ionization and the second for heating. In a novel approach, a positively biased electrode is used to confine REs after discharge termination. E-B is also used for controlling the rotation of drift-tearing modes by changing the plasma rotation. Cold pulse propagation and signatures of detachment are observed during the injection of short gas puffs. A correlation between the plasma toroidal rotation and the total radiated power has been observed with neon gas injection-induced improved confinement modes.

The ADITYA upgrade (ADITYA-U), a medium-sized ( R 0 = 75 cm , a = 25 cm ) conventional tokamak facility in India, has been consistently producing experiments findings by using circular and shaped-plasmas. Recognizing the plasma parameters aligning closely with the design parameters of circular limited plasmas, ADITYA-U shifted its focus toward exploring the operational regime for experimentation on saw-tooth and MHD phenomena. Moreover, ADITYA-U has made consistent advancements toward conducting preliminary plasma shaping experiments through the activation of top and bottom divertor coils utilizing hydrogen as well as deuterium fuels. Confinement is improved by a factor of ∼1.5 in D 2 plasmas when compared to H ₂ plasmas of ADITYA-U. Further, ADITYA-U operations emphasize preventing disruptions and runaway electrons (REs) to ensure safe operations for future fusion devices. Significant suppression of REs has been achieved in ADITYA-U with the application of pulsed localized vertical magnetic field (LVF) perturbation, thereby establishing the technique’s independence from the tokamak device. The successful RE mitigation requires a critical threshold of LVF pulse magnitude, which is approximately 1% of the toroidal magnetic field, and a minimum duration of ∼5 ms. Apart from this, several novel findings have been achieved in the ADITYA-U experiments, including the modification of sawtooth duration through gas-puff, the emergence of MHD-induced geodesic acoustic mode-like oscillations, the propagation of fast heat pulses induced by MHD activity, the control of RE dynamics through Gas-puffs, the propagation of pinch-driven cold-pulses, the transport and core accumulations of argon impurities, the mass dependency of plasma toroidal rotation and the detection of ‘RICE’ scaling, as well as the characterization of edge plasma using wall conditioning methods, such as glow discharge cleaning using a combination of Ar-H ₂ mixture, localized wall cleaning by electron cyclotron resonant plasma, and the development of machine learning-based disruption predictions, will be discussed in this paper.

Several spectroscopic diagnostics encompassing the spectral emission range from the x-ray to near infrared (NIR) have been developed, installed and operated for diagnosing and physics studies in the ADITYA and ADITYA-U tokamaks. The recycling and impurity influxes and plasma Z _eff after lithium (Li) coating have been studied using a PMT (photomultiplier tube)-filter based system by capturing H _α , O¹⁺, C²⁺, and visible continuum emissions. Significant reduction in the Z _eff values has been observed in the discharge with the Li coated walls. The measured radial profile of H _α emission using a filter-PMT array, has been modelled using a neutral transport code. The results show substantial contributions from the molecular hydrogen and molecular hydrogen ion dissociation (∼56%) and charge-exchange (∼30%) processes in the measured H _α emission. Furthermore, a high-resolution, 1 m spectrometer with charge coupled device detector capable of multi-track measurements, has been used to study impurity transport, neutral and ion temperature and intrinsic plasma rotation. By modelling the measured radial profile of O⁴⁺ spectral line emission using an impurity transport code, substantial contribution of edge fluctuations on the oxygen transport has been observed. The toroidal ( u T max ∼ 20 km s⁻¹ in core) and poloidal ( u θ max ∼ 4.5 km s⁻¹ at edge) rotation velocities are measured using C⁵⁺ (529 nm) and C²⁺ (464.7 nm) passive line emissions respectively. The measurement of radial profile of toroidal plasma rotation revealed a reversal of rotation direction depending on the electron density content of the ADITYA-U plasmas. The neutral temperature measurements showed a poloidal asymmetry indicating a presence of asymmetrical source of neutral heating. Moreover, the modelling of measured Fe¹⁴⁺ and Fe¹⁵⁺ vacuum ultraviolet spectral lines has revealed the neo-classical nature of iron transport in ADITYA core. Fast visible camera images captured the formation of filament structures triggered by interchange instabilities during plasma disruptions.

In fusion devices, various techniques are employed for coating the plasma facing components (PFCs) including the vessel wall with low-Z material like lithium, boron, and silicon in order to enhance the plasma parameters and control. In ADITYA-Upgrade tokamak, different techniques of lithium wall conditioning are developed and implemented to obtain uniform and sustainable coating of Li on PFCs and the vessel wall. In this paper, two techniques used to generate Li from the source are reported. In one of the technique, a heated (fixed temperature of ∼120 °C) Li-rod is placed inside the hydrogen glow discharge cleaning (H-GDC) plasma and the sputtered Li by hydrogen (H) ions and atoms coats the wall and periphery. In the second technique, the Li is vapourized using a high-temperature Li-evaporator and released into the H-GDC plasma for uniform coating of Li on the PFCs and vessel. Significantly enhanced plasma parameters are obtained after Li coating by both techniques, with the evaporated Li performed better than the Li rod case. With the Li coating obtained with evaporated Li at 600 °C (550 mg Li) with H-GDC, the Li wall conditioning has been observed to be sustaining for in a larger number of plasma discharges in comparison to non-H-GDC assisted Li deposition. As the melting temperature of lithium hydride (LiH) is much higher (688.7 °C) than that of lithium (180.5 °C), this enhance the longer Li-coating lifetime relatively due to the formation of Li–H molecules on the vessel wall and PFCs. In ADITYA-U the carbon impurity and hydrogen recycling, due to relatively high surface area of graphite PFCs as well as their proximity to the plasma, limits the plasma performance and effective controls. Hence, H-GDC, H-GDC with Li-rod sputtering or Li evaporation, helium-GDC, argon–hydrogen mixtures-GDC in particular sequence are carried out to obtain better plasma discharges. The Li coating techniques and their effect on tokamak plasma discharges of ADITYA-U are discussed in this paper.