Performance of a dual-process PVD/PS tungsten coating structure under deuterium ion irradiation

A dual-process coating structure was developed on a graphite substrate to improve the performance of the coating structure under anticipated operating condition of fusion devices. A thin multilayer W/Mo coating (6 μm) was deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD) method with a variation of Mo interlayer thickness on plasma spray (PS) W coating (160 μm) of a graphite substrate panel. The dual-process PVD/PS W coatings then were exposed to 3.08 × 1024 D m−2 of 100 eV D ions with a flux of 1.71 × 1021 D m−2 s−1 in an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) chamber. After irradiation, surface morphology and D depth profiles of the dual-process coating were analyzed and compared to those of the simple PS W coating. Both changes in surface morphology and D retention were strongly dependent on the microstructure of surface coating. Meanwhile, the existence of Mo interlayer seemed to have no significant effect on the retention of deuterium.