A practical sublimation source for large-scale chromium gettering in fusion devices☆

Abstract This paper describes the fabrication and testing of a large-scale chromium sublimation source that resembles the VARIAN Ti-ball TM in its design. The device consists of a hollow chromium sphere with a diameter of approximately 3 cm and an incandescent filament for radiation heating from inside the ball. We also discuss the gettering technique utilizing this source. The experimental arrangement consists of an ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) system instrumented for total and partial pressure measurements, a film thickness monitor, thermocouples, an optical pyrometer, and appropriate instrumentation to measure the heating power. The results show the temperature and corresponding sublimation rate of the Cr-ball as functions of input power. In addition, an example of the total pumping speed of a gettered surface is shown.