Quantification of tungsten sputtering at W/C twin limiters in TEXTOR with the aid of local WF6 injection

Abstract

Tungsten is foreseen as the plasma-facing component material for baffles, the dome and strike-point area in the ITER divertor. Quantification of the W source, which is connected with the components lifetime and W plasma concentration, is one of the outstanding issues in the qualification process. A dedicated experiment in TEXTOR with the exposure of a W/C twin limiter to the near scrape-off layer plasma has been carried out in order to address the W sputtering and local material mixing in the electron temperature range between Te=30 and 85 eV, achieved with deuterium fueling in four steps. The Te range is comparable to the baffle region and the strike-point area during non-detached transient phases of the ITER divertor plasma. Quantification of the W sputtering yield and the impinging impurity fluxes was performed with the aid of optical spectroscopy, in particular by observation of WI and WII lines. As no inverse photon efficiencies in the plasma parameter range of the twin limiter experiment exist, we performed in a second experiment for the first time a calibration of WI and WII photon efficiencies with local injection of WF6 through a gas inlet into the TEXTOR edge plasma. The in situ determined effective inverse photon efficiency of about 85 for the most prominent WI line at 400.9 nm, which is in good agreement with GKU modelling for the covered Te range and 650 for the WII line at 434.8 nm, has been applied to the corresponding photon fluxes in the twin limiter experiment. The W sputtering yield decreases from 5.2 to 0.5%, thus by about one order of magnitude, with a reduction of Te from 85 eV down to 30 eV and a simultaneous increase of the impinging deuterium ion flux by 50% occurs. A lower limit for the prompt redeposition has been estimated at 50% by analyzing the WI to WII flux ratio. Local measurement of OII (441.6 nm) and CII (426.7 nm) provided impurity flux ratios of 0.6% for O and 5.2% for C related to the deuterium recycling, respectively ion flux. Both flux ratios remain constant for all phases of the discharge with plasma edge cooling. W erosion is predominantly caused by sputtering of higher ionization stages of O and C impinging on the W limiter half and not by the fuel species itself. Plasma cooling below the physical sputtering threshold could not be achieved without impurity seeding.