The anomalous transport in magnetized plasmas remains to be an outstanding issue, which in large part due to the difficulty in diagnosing the small amplitude fluctuations in the high temperature plasma core. Recent progress in fusion studies has motivated the development of advanced microwave imaging diagnostics, both to visualize the elegant three-dimensional (3-D) structures of plasma turbulence revealed by extensive computer simulations" and to perform high spatial and temporal resolution measurement of turbulent fluctuations in the plasma core, such as T_e fluctuation measurements by ECE imaging. A third motivation is the recent discovery of the problem with conventional reflectometry and the need for imaging reflectometry as an essential tool for density fluctuation measurements. The fourth is the need to measure fine scale structures in profiles of transport significance, such as filamentation and internal transport barriers4. The focus and emphasis of this paper will therefore primarily be on the dramatic breakthroughs occurring in electron cyclotron emission imaging (ECEI) and microwave imaging reflectometry (MIR), which will ultimately permit the imaging and visualization of complicated 2-D and 3-D structures of both electron temperature and density.
展开▼