Report on the deuterium retention in CVD coated W on SiC in support of the Ultramet Company?s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project: SOW DE-FG02-07ER84941

Abstract

A tungsten (W) coated (0.0005-inch thickness) silicon carbide (SiC) (1.0-inch diameter and 0.19-inch thickness) sample was exposed to a divertor relevant high-flux (~1022 m-2s-1) deuterium plasma at 200 and 400°C in the Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL’s) Tritium Plasma Experiment (TPE), and the total deuterium retention was subsequently measured via the thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) method. The deuterium retentions were 6.4x1019 m-2 and 1.7x1020 m-2, for 200 and 400°C exposure, respectively. The Tritium Migration Analysis Program (TMAP) was used to analyze the measured TDS spectrum to investigate the deuterium behavior in the W coated SiC, and the results indicated that most of the deuterium was trapped in the W coated layer even at 400°C. This thin W layer (0.0005-inch ~ 13µm thickness) prevented deuterium ions from bombarding directly into the SiC substrate, minimizing erosion of SiC and damage creation via ion bombardment. The shift in the D desorption peak in the TDS spectra from 200 C to 400°C can be attributed to D migration to the bulk material. This unexpectedly low deuterium retention and short migration might be due to the porous nature of the tungsten coating, which can decrease the solution concentration of deuterium atoms.