PERFORMANCE OF BORON CARBON 1ST WALL MATERIALS UNDER FUSION RELEVANT CONDITIONS

The conditioning of the plasma facing wall in thermonuclear confinement experiments has been performed very successfully by the application of amorphous boron containing hydrogenated carbon films. Boronization leads to tokamak discharges with significantly reduced oxygen and carbon contaminations. For high heat flux components (especially in future quasi-stationary confinement experiments) new boron/carbon materials have to be developed: monolithic tiles of boronated graphites which can be brazed to watercooled substrates or thick B4C-coatings on graphite or high-Z coolant tubes. A variety of bulk materials (boronated graphites with boron contents in the range from 3 to 30%, so-called coat mix material on the basis of B4C) and coatings (amorphous B/C films, thick B4C layers applied by LPPS or CVD methods) were characterized systematically. In addition the behaviour of these materials was investigated under thermal loads; erosion and disruption simulation experiments were performed in electron and ion beam high heat flux test facilities. Physical and chemical sputtering of the coat-mix-material was studied in the PISCES-B facility in dependence on the hydrogen ions fluence.