Mixed-material coating formation on plasma-facing components

When any plasma confinement device is fabricated from more than a single material which can come into contact with either particle or heat flux, there is the potential for migration of one of these materials to the locations of other materials. This combination of materials, or mixed materials, can have substantially different properties than either of the original materials. The PISCES-B linear plasma device is examining the formation conditions and properties of mixed-material surface layers which can form on plasma-facing components. The PISCES-B device has been modified to incorporate an impurity gas (CD4, CO, O-2, etc.) puffing system in the target interaction region. It is, therefore, possible to control the fraction of impurities in the incident plasma and to perform systematic tests on the conditions necessary to form mixed-materials surface layers. The concentration of the species in the plasma column is measured spectroscopically, as well as by a residual gas monitor on the vacuum chamber. Measurements of the rate of growth of the thickness of the mixed material layer are performed. A simple erosion model can adequately describe the growth rate of the mixed-material layer and may allow for growth rate predictions in other plasma environments. It is also important to investigate the role of redeposition of metallic impurities in the formation of mixed material layers. A beryllium evaporator has been independently installed upstream of the target-interaction region to allow seeding of the incident plasma with beryllium. The presence of beryllium on the sample surface is observed to reduce the chemical erosion of the graphite by more than the reduction of the surface carbon concentration. And finally, the hydrogen isotope retention properties of carbon-containing layers on beryllium could have serious implications for tritium accumulation in ITER. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.