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Depth profiling of the modification induced by high-flux deuterium plasma in tungsten and tungsten–tantalum alloys

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Abstract

The present work reports the results of an experimental study of the depth distribution and fluence dependence of deuterium plasma-induced material modification of tungsten and tungsten–tantalum alloys. Plasma-induced damage was created by exposure to high-flux deuterium plasma in the plasma generator Pilot-PSI, followed by the degassing and subsequent decoration of created defects with deuterium by another plasma exposure. The depth distribution of deuterium from the decorating exposure reflects the distribution of plasma-induced defects. Depth profiling of this decorating deuterium, was performed by nuclear reaction analysis. It was found that plasma-induced material modification, which manifested itself as an increase of the deuterium concentration in the samples pre-exposed with high-flux plasma in comparison to the samples without such pre-exposure extends down to more than5 µ m from the surface. This increase features a tendency to saturation with increasing fluence of the damaging high-flux plasma. Over the entire probing range, with the exception of the narrow surface region and the deep region beyond5 µ m, the deuterium content is lower in pre-exposed W–Ta than in similarly pre-exposed W. Sub-surface features formed as a result of high-flux plasma exposure were studied with the help of focused ion beam cross-sectioning. W was found to contain plasma-induced cavities down to much larger depth than W–Ta.

Year of Publication
2014
Journal
Nuclear Fusion
Volume
54
Number
12
Issue
12
Number of Pages
123013
DOI
PId
c8f40c8f9d38a1ebc658d4081abd5d65
Alternate Journal
Nucl. Fusion
Journal Article
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