New insights on plasma-matter interaction for improved modelling of fusion reactor operations
Doctoral student Philipp Mika Wolf and supervisor Eduardo Pitthan from Uppsala University have spent three years collecting data on how ions can affect materials used in future fusion reactors.
Experimental data shows that model parameters necessary for accurate predictions of interactions between light plasma species and materials critical for operation of fusion reactors, can be inaccurate.
The Fusion/PWIE-related team at IAP/TU Wien. From left to right: Gyula Nagy, Martina Fellinger, Raphael Gurschl, Benjamin Burazor Domazet
A new study from Uppsala University in collaboration with TU Wien, largely conducted utilizing the Tandem Laboratory national infrastructure, reveals that models used to describe how light plasma species (H, D, He) interact with plasma-facing materials (W, Fe, EUROFER97) may be inaccurate.
The study reports deviations from model predictions of energy deposition and nuclear interactions, in the interaction of light ions with fusion materials and its consequences in materials erosion rates (sputtering yields).
Discrepancies of up to 210 %
The energy deposition of ions traversing through matter and short-range repulsive interatomic potentials were measured. At low energies, discrepancies of up to 210% relative to current models in use were identified for the specific energy loss, underlining the need for improved input parameters.
The study, published in Nuclear Materials and Energy, was carried out within the European Enabling Research (ENR) project from EUROfusion.
The project was also supported by detailed atomic scale modelling from researchers at Aalto University.
Researchers involved include Eduardo Pitthan, Philipp Mika Wolf, Jila Shams-Latifi, and Daniel Primetzhofer from Uppsala University, together with Martina Fellinger, Benjamin Burazor Domazet, and Friedrich Aumayr from TU Wien.
Fusion reactors have plasma facing walls
Future fusion reactors place extreme demands on their inner walls, as they will confine a plasma at temperatures of several hundred million degrees. These plasma-facing components will be constantly bombarded by fast particles and exposed to intense heat, which can gradually wear down the materials. To design reactors that are durable and economically viable, scientists rely on accurate models of plasma–material interactions.