Plasma surface interactions in compact ignition devices

Owing to their small size compact ignition devices offer the potential of studying the physics of ignited plasma with only a relatively small capital outlay. The penalty for the small size is that the limiter/divertor heat loads are high due to the high energy density and the small surface area of these devices. The large amount of stored energy also implies that disruption effects will be very severe. Since the distance between the divertor and the plasma is minimized, careful attention must be paid to impurity generation. Hence erosion becomes a critical issue. Another important issue is that of particle handling, since the machine operates at high density. These issues of heat loads, disruptions, impurity generation, and particle handling will be discussed in this paper.