BORONIZATION OF RUSSIAN TOKAMAKS FROM CARBORANE PRECURSORS

A new and cheap boronization technique using the nontoxic and nonexplosive solid substance carborane has been developed and successfully applied to the Russian tokamaks T-11M, T-3M, T-10 and TUMAN-3. The glow discharge in a mixture of He and carborane vapor produced the amorphous B/C coating with the B/C ratio varied from 2.0-3.7. The deposition rate was about 150 nm/h. The primary effect of boronization was a significant reduction of the impurity influx and the plasma impurity contamination, a sharp decrease of the plasma radiated power, and a decrease of the effective charge. Boronization strongly suppressed the impurity influx caused by additional plasma heating. ECR- and ICR-heating as well as ECR current drive were more effective in boronized vessels. Boronization resulted in a significant extension of the N-e- and q-region of stable tokamak operation. The density limit rose strongly. In Ohmic H-mode energy confinement time increased significantly (by a factor of 2) after boronization. It rose linearly with plasma current I-p and was 10 times higher than Neo-Alcator time at maximum current.