Masayuki Tokitani

Comparison of Damages on Tungsten Surface Exposed to Noble Gas Plasmas

Tungsten was exposed to pure Ar or Ne plasmas over 1550 K at several incident ion energies. Even under the irradiation condition that the tungsten nanostructure is formed by He plasma irradiation, holes/bubbles and fiberform nanostructures were not formed on the surface by exposure to Ar or Ne plasmas. In addition, the results from energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy supported the facts that Ar and Ne did not remain in the sample. We will discuss the reason for the differences in the damage to the tungsten surface exposed to noble gas plasmas.

Development of steady-state operation using ion cyclotron heating in the Large Helical Device

Using a handshake shape (HAS) antenna phasing dipole for ion cyclotron heating (ICH), the heating efficiency was higher than that using a previous poloidal array antenna in the Large Helical Device. In order to sustain the dipole operation, real-time feedback for impedance matching and maintaining the same phase and power was adopted during long-pulse discharge. The HAS antenna was designed to reduce parasitic losses associated with energetic particle and radio-frequency (RF) sheath effects by field-aligned current concentration on the midplane. Local hot spots and the inhomogeneity of the diverter heat profile in the toroidal direction were reduced. The long-pulse discharge with an electron density (ne0) of 1u2009×u20091019 m−3, center electron temperature (Te0) of 2.5u2009keV, a plasma duration time (td) of 19u2009min, and RF heating power (PRF) of 1u2009MW was achieved by ICH and electron cyclotron heating.

Impact of arcing on carbon and tungsten: from the observations in JT-60U, LHD and NAGDIS-II

Arcing is a long-standing plasma?surface interaction issue, and the issue is currently being revived. This paper assesses the impact of arcing in fusion devices based on the observations in JT-60U, the Large Helical Device (LHD) and the linear divertor simulator NAGDIS-II. To investigate the first initiation process of arcing, field emission currents from several tungsten samples are measured. It is shown that the field emission current increases significantly after tungsten is exposed to helium plasmas. A postmortem analysis of JT-60U tiles reveals that arcing phenomena occurred on carbon baffle plates inside the vacuum vessel in JT-60U. From the observation of the arc trails recorded on the baffle plate, the amount of eroded materials is discussed. The arcing seems to occur frequently on the inner baffles rather than the outer baffles. From LHD, it is shown that the arcing can be initiated on nanostructured tungsten even without transient events. The erosion of tungsten by arcing will become an important issue in a fusion reactor, where helium fluence is significantly increased. From the experiments in NAGDIS-II, it is shown that arcing can be initiated even without transient heat load when the target voltage is low enough, e.g. ?500?V. Frequent initiation of arcing annihilates the nanostructure growth due to helium plasma irradiation on the surface.

Measurement of thermophysical property of plasma forming tungsten nanofiber layer

Thermophysical property of a nanostructured tungsten layer formed on a tungsten film was investigated. A 1-µm-thick tungsten film deposited on a quartz glass substrate was irradiated with a high density helium plasma at the surface temperature of 1500 K. The plasma irradiation led to the formation of highly porous fiberform-nanostructured tungsten layer with a thickness of 3.5 µm. Impulse heating was applied at the interface of the film/substrate, and transient heat diffusion was observed using a pulsed light heating thermoreflectance apparatus. The thermoreflectance signals clearly differed between the nanostructure existing and mechanically removed regions; the difference can be attributed to thermal effusivity of the nanostructured tungsten layer. The estimated thermal conductivity of the nanostructured tungsten decreases to ~2% of that of bulk when the density of the nanostructure is assumed to be ~6% of the bulk value.

Progress of Binary-Collision-Approximation-Based Simulation for Surface Erosion by Plasma Irradiation

The investigation of the erosion process of plasma facing material under plasma irradiation is an important issue for the achievement of the steady-state operation of nuclear fusion devices. Although binary-collision-approximation-based (BCA) simulation is a powerful tool for the investigation of plasma-material interaction, there is a difficulty to apply the simulation to the investigation of dynamical process of erosion because BCA simulation neglects two physical processes, i.e., diffusion process of retained plasma particles in material and structural relaxation process of material. In this paper, therefore, we develop an extended BCA simulation taking account of diffusion and relaxation processes for the calculation of erosion of materials under plasma irradiation.

Enhancement of multi-pulse laser induced damage threshold on Cu mirror under vacuum condition

Multi-pulse laser induced damage threshold (LIDT) for metallic mirrors are important issue for laser diagnostics in future fusion devices. In this paper, the mechanism of multi-pulse LIDT and the influence of the slip formation and oxidization in atmosphere were investigated experimentally with a Nd:YAG pulse laser whose pulse width and wavelength are ~ 5 ns and 1064 nm, respectively. From detailed surface analysis of laser irradiated part by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), it was found that the miniaturization of crystal size and slip formation were observed on damaged area. Oxidization feature was also revealed from the TEM analysis. It was shown that the multi-pulse LIDT could be increased under vacuum condition compared with that in air atmosphere.

Effect of high-energy neutral particles on extreme ultraviolet spectroscopy in large helical device.

Spectra measured by an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectrometer frequently suffer large spike noise when Large Helical Device is operated in low-density range (≤ 3 × 10(13) cm(-3)) with neutral beam injection (NBI). The spike noise completely disappears in electron cyclotron heating discharges. In order to examine the effect of NBI, a carbon filter with thickness of 150 nm was installed in the EUV spectrometer. As a result, the spike noise was reduced by an order of magnitude. It is experimentally verified that the spike noise is caused by escaping high-energy neutral particles resulting from the circulating high-energy hydrogen ions borne from NBI.

Assessment of multi-pulse laser-induced damage threshold of metallic mirrors for Thomson scattering system

Multi-pulse laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) was experimentally investigated up to ~10(6) pulses for Cu, Ag mirrors. The surface roughness and the hardness dependence on the LIDT were also examined. The LIDT of OFHC-Cu decreased with the pulse number and was 1.0 J/cm(2) at 1.8 × 10(6) pulses. The expected LIDT of cutting Ag at 10(7) pulses was the highest; Ag mirror would be one of the best choices for ITER Thomson scattering system. For the roughness and hardness, material dependences of LIDT are discussed with experimental results.

Effects of Mild Baking on Hydrogen Removal from the Modified Surface of the First Wall in the LHD

An additional deuterium irradiation was performed for long-term samples mounted on the first wall in the large helical device (LHD) to investigate the effect of mild baking (at 368 K) on fuel hydrogen removal from the modified surface. The efficiency of baking strongly depended on the surface conditions. In the erosion dominant area, almost all the retained deuterium was removed by baking, whereas only 17% and 13% of the retained deuterium were removed from the boron and carbon deposition areas, respectively. The results suggest that the erosion dominant area in the first wall can act as a pumping wall during the main discharge, and, in contrast, the fuel hydrogen retention can continuously increase in boron and carbon deposition areas owing to the low removal efficiency of fuel hydrogen given that the deposition continues during the plasma discharge.

Comparison of induced damage, range, reflection, and sputtering yield between amorphous, bcc crystalline, and bubble-containing tungsten materials under hydrogen isotope and noble gas plasma irradiations

Binary-collision-approximation simulation of hydrogen isotope (i.e., hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium) and noble gas (i.e., helium, neon, and argon) injections into tungsten materials is performed. Three tungsten structures (i.e., amorphous, bcc crystalline, and helium bubble-containing structures) are prepared as target materials. Then, the trajectories of incident atoms, the distribution of recoil atoms, the penetration depth range of incident atoms, the sputtering yield, and the reflection rate are carefully investigated for these target materials.