Helium retention properties of plasma facing materials

Abstract In a fusion reactor, the continuous removal of helium from the core plasma is needed in order to sustain the ignition condition. For this purpose, it has been proposed to place helium selective pumping metals, which can trap more helium than hydrogen, in the vicinity of the divertor. In this study, the helium and hydrogen trapping properties of nickel, tungsten, molybdenum, SS 304 and Inconel 625 were examined. Namely, the dependencies of irradiation temperature on the amount of trapped helium and hydrogen were obtained by thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS), after helium or hydrogen plasma irradiation. In those metals, nickel showed the most suitable selective pumping capability. Nickel had the helium selective pumping property above 100°C. The maximum amount of trapped helium was (2–3) × 10 16 He / cm 2 at an irradiation temperature of 200°C and 600°C. The optimum temperature becomes about 600°C when nickel is used for a selective pumping material.