Plasma-wall Interaction with Irradiated Tungsten and Tungsten Alloys in Fusion Devices

Tungsten is commonly used in the plasma-facing components of fusion reactors because of its high melting point and low propensity to absorb tritium. However, like all solid materials, it is damaged over time by interactions with the high energy neutrons produced in fusion reactions.

This CRP seeks to understand the effect of neutron and surrogate (charged particle) irradiation upon the tungsten crystal microstructure and through that the effect upon its plasma–material interaction properties, in particular tritium retention and transport.

An important round-robin experimental activity compared the measurement by thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) of known quantities of deuterium implanted in damaged tungsten, and involved 17 groups from around the world to critically assess the precision of this experimental technique .

The final report of this CRP was published as Volume 18 of the IAEA series Atomic and Plasma–Material Interaction Data.