Tritium plasma experiment: Parameters and potentials for fusion plasma-wall interaction studies

Abstract

The tritium plasma experiment (TPE) is a unique facility devoted to experiments on the behavior of deuterium/tritium in toxic (e.g., beryllium) and radioactive materials for fusion plasma-wall interaction studies. A Langmuir probe was added to the system to characterize the plasma conditions in TPE. With this new diagnostic, we found the achievable electron temperature ranged from 5.0 to 10.0 eV, the electron density varied from 5.0 × 10(16) to 2.5 × 10(18) m(-3), and the ion flux density varied between 5.0 × 10(20) to 2.5 × 10(22) m(-2) s(-1) along the centerline of the plasma. A comparison of these plasma parameters with the conditions expected for the plasma facing components (PFCs) in ITER shows that TPE is capable of achieving most (∼800 m(2) of 850 m(2) total PFCs area) of the expected ion flux density and electron density conditions.