Deuterium Retention and Sputtering Processes of Boronized, Lithiated and Oxidated Carbon Surfaces Facing Low-Temperature Fusion Plasma

The studies of plasma-material interactions (PMI) have an important role in understanding of the operation of a fusion reactor. High particle fluxes from the fusion plasma can damage the material of the plasma facing components (PFC’s) and limit the lifetime of the reactor, while sputtered particles may reach the fusion plasma core and disrupt the fusion process. The retention of the hydrogen isotopes from the boundary plasma influences recycling of the fusion fuel and may produce radioactive waste by accumulation of tritium.  In this talk, I present the study of deuterium retention and chemical sputtering process of boronized, lithiated and oxidated carbon surface by deuterium atoms impacting the PFC’s of National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) in Princeton..

Classical molecular dynamics, corrected by EEM to include charges dynamically and verified by quantum-classical molecular dynamics based on SCC-DFTB has been mainly used in our work, to report the sputtering yield as well as mass, energy and angular spectra of ejected atoms and molecules  We validated our data with in situ data  and ex situ experimental results, whenever available. We found that the carbon erosion is notoriously suppressed by conditioning of the carbon by boron and lithium. Oxygen is unintentionally always present in the material and significantly influences the processes.

Pizza lunch immediately following seminar!  Seminar attendees only!

RSVP to Sarena.Romano@stonybrook.edu to confirm attendance!