Abstract The ITER divertor will have to handle the boundary plasma power exhaust in the form of high heat and particle flux. The Prototype Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment (Proto-MPEX) is… Click to show full abstract
Abstract The ITER divertor will have to handle the boundary plasma power exhaust in the form of high heat and particle flux. The Prototype Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment (Proto-MPEX) is a plasma source development device for the proposed Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment (MPEX), which is intended to create fusion reactor divertor-like plasma conditions for studying plasma material interactions. Here, ion fluxes to various targets within Proto-MPEX are found to be 5 ± 2.5 × 1023 m−2s-1 when using only a helicon plasma source. The fluxes along the flux tube are compared for both 30 cm in front of the target and a few cm in front of the target. The emission intensity fall-off distance in front of the target is studied via Balmer series from a visible camera looking at the target. This fall-off distance of ∼2–4 cm and the dissociation and ionization mean free path of D2 being over 0.5 m leads to a conclusion that Proto-MPEX is not in a high recycling regime with helicon only plasmas.
               
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