Divertor materials evaluation system (DiMES)

The mission of the Divertor Materials Evaluation System (DiMES) in DIII-D is to establish an integrated data base from measurements in the divertor of a tokamak in order to address some of the ITER and fusion power reactor plasma material interaction issues. Carbon and metal coatings of Be, W, V, and Mo were exposed to the steady-state outer strike point on DIII-D for 4--18 s. These short exposure times ensure controlled exposure conditions, and the extensive arrays of DIII-D divertor diagnostics provide a well-characterized plasma for modeling efforts. Post-exposure analysis provides a direct measure of surface material erosion rates and the amount of retained deuterium. For carbon, these results match closely with the results of accumulated carbon deposition and erosion, and the corresponding deuterium retention of long term exposure tiles in DIII-D. Under the carbon-contaminated background plasma of DIII-D, metal coatings of Be, V, Mo, and W were exposed to the steady-state outer strike point under ELMing and ELM-free H-mode discharges. The rate of material erosion and deuterium retention were measured. As expected, W shows the lowest erosion rate at 0.1 mm/s and the lowest deuterium uptake of 2 {times} 10{sup 20}/m{sup 2}.