MPC - PWI Projects

About Us

Nuclear fusion is considered the future large scale and reliable energy source of our planet. To succeed on this endeavour it is necessary to build a reactor able to confine the plasma and extract the fusion energy released. A major issue is the interaction of the plasma with the chamber walls. Studies on this subject have been realized during the last decades in several laboratories around the world and our group is involved in this programme for a long time using ion beam techniques to study plasma wall interaction processes. Through the analysis of marker tiles and passive diagnostics components it is possible to quantify processes like erosion, deposition, impurity transport and fuel retention in the wall of the reactor chamber. This information is fundamental to validate the theoretical models describing plasma wall interactions and define the properties required by wall and divertor materials.

Contact

Dr. Eduardo Alves, CI
Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear
Instituto Superior Técnico
Campus Tecnológico e Nuclear
Estrada Nacional 10 (km 139,7)
2695-066 Bobadela LRS - Portugal

JET2 Project Joint European Torus 2: study of the physics underlying all the processes related with the plasma wall interactions. The group is responsible for the analysis of marker tiles and passive diagnostics components from the main chamber and divertor of JET.

Very low D content in areas of greater power loads; structure in deposition profiles is related to tile shaping and gaps between segments; average D content is low, < 1018 cm^-2.

PFC-MAT Project Plasma Facing Components - Materials: materials facing the plasma will be hit by a cloud of highly charged particles and neutrals depositing large quantities of energy and affecting their integrity. To understand the processes operating during these interactions we produce the materials which will be used in the fusion reactors and mimic in laboratory the effect of the plasma to test their behaviour.

Ion Beam studies of the formation and thermal stability of W₂N up to 1073 K.

Plasma Wall Interactions