Strategies for reaching high density and opacity conditions leveraging the Shape and Volume Rise divertor on DIII-D

A new divertor geometry enabling high shaping on DIII-D has been leveraged to achieve among the highest pedestal pressures observed to date on the device, yielding: 1) plasmas with Edge Localized Modes (ELMs) at high absolute parameters (β^ped_N > 1.3, T_e^ped > 2keV, T_i^ped >3keV); 2) highly decoupled peeling and ballooning instabilities through high shaping at δ=0.96 and κ=2.04; 3) Quiescent H-mode plasmas with n_e,0 = 1.2x10²⁰m^-3 and n_e^sep six times greater than typical QH-modes, separately attaining T_i^ped >5.5keV; and 4) resonant magnetic perturbation studies indicating enhanced resonance with elevated β_N values, particularly for high triangularity plasmas close to magnetic balance; and 5) ELM suppression at dRsep values as low as 0.3cm. A significant experimental thrust leverages this new divertor geometry to access reactor relevant conditions of simultaneous high pressure, density, and opacity with a pedestal limited by peeling instabilities. Pushing to this new regime is an important step towards closing the Integrated Tokamak Exhaust and Performance gap required to extrapolate present regimes to future devices. This poster overviews results of team experiments with an emphasis on the impact of shaping and profile structure on pedestal stability, specifically for the ELMy scenario.