Lithium research as a plasma facing component material at the University of Illinois

Abstract

Plasma facing component (PFC) materials are critical to the development of future fusion reactor. While several different PFC materials have been considered in the past, there is an increased interest in the scientific community on the use of lithium as a future PFC material, after its initial success demonstrated by the TFTR “supershots” and more recent work performed on the CDX-U and NSTX spherical tori. The worldwide usage of lithium in tokamaks has grown rapidly over the past few years because of these results. The Center for Plasma-Material Interactions (CPMI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has been actively involved in lithium research since its foundation and currently, there are three experimental facilities dedicated to studying lithium interactions relevant to fusion conditions namely: 1. Ion surface InterAction eXperiment (IIAX); 2. Divertor Erosion and Vapor Shielding eXperiment (DEVeX); and 3. Solid/Liquid Lithium Divertor Experiment (SLiDE). One of the significant advantages of these experimental facilities is the ability to study the basic physics of the phenomenon taking place. In this review paper, a brief description of the experimental facilities and their capabilities is provided and the interested reader is advised to look in future publications for the recent results.