Direct measurements of electronic ground state ro-vibrationally excited D2 molecules produced on ECR plasma-facing materials by means of VUV-FT absorption spectroscopy

Abstract Ro-vibrationally excited molecules of deuterium are involved in non-equilibrium chemical reactions in divertor region of tokamak, molecular assisted recombination, or in neutral beam injector to produce negative ion, dissociative electron attachment, for fusion plasmas. These molecules produced both in a plasma volume and on surfaces are no longer in their electronic ground state X 1 ∑ g + ( v ” ⩾ 0 , J ” ) and populate non-uniformly different vibrational (v″) and rotational levels (J″). The high resolution VUV Fourier Transform spectrometer of the DESIRS beam line (SOLEIL synchrotron) is applied to directly scrutinize the ro-vibrationally excited levels of the D2 ground state from v″ = 0 to 10 and J″ up to 8 in an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) cold plasma. This is performed for different plasma-facing materials, i.e. quartz, tantalum, tungsten, and stainless steel, in order to compare their relative impact in molecular excitation through recombinative desorption from surfaces. A significant effect of these materials on the absolute distribution of the vibrationally states has been found above v″  >  3. The experimental detection limit for Quartz is v″ = 7 whereas tungsten and stainlees steel excite the molecules up to v″ = 9 and tantalum up to v″ = 10. The use of a bare, temperature-controlled surface of Quartz as a reference, compared to metallic surfaces, allows us to determine the relative production of these excited levels. The recombinative desorption rate on tungsten and stainless steel compared to quartz is  ∼ 2.6 higher and reaches  ∼ 5 for tantalum.