A study on temperature effects on hydrogen recycling and molybdenum impurity emission from a movable limiter in TRIAM-1M Tokamak

In order to investigate the surface temperature effects on plasma fuel recycling and impurity release from the plasma facing components, plasma discharges have been performed under selected plasma–wall interaction (PWI) conditions in the high-field superconducting tokamak, TRIAM-1M. By moving a water-cooled molybdenum movable limiter (ML) beyond the last closed flux surface, as defined by poloidal limiters, the surface temperature profile on it is varied. Hot spots have been observed on the ML surface in such conditions. The release behaviour of fuel as well as impurity particles from the ML surface has been studied as a function of hot spot temperature (Thot) by means of wide range spectroscopy (200–1600 nm). A critical Thot is found to be ~2100 K above which the emission of both hydrogen and impurity particles enhances significantly. This is indicative of some thermally activated process playing an important role in PWIs between the limiter and the edge plasma. With the rise in hot spot temperature localized PWI at the ML is found to dominate the global recycling even when external fuelling is stopped.