Nanostructure growth by helium plasma irradiation to tungsten in sputtering regime

The formation of nanostructure on tungsten (W) surface due to Helium (He) plasma irradiation can be harmful for fusion reactors. Up to now, W nanostructure growth was investigated mainly without sputtering. Under sputtering regime, nanostructure growth competes with erosion due to sputtering. In this study, the nanostructure growth was investigated in the linear divertor simulator NAGDIS-II at incident ion energy range of 200-500 eV. The growth of nanostructures was investigated by experiments and calculations under the sputtering regime. With increasing incident ion energy, the thickness of nanostructured W layer saturated rapidly at a lower He fluence, resulting in thinner W nanostructured layer. The erosion rate of the top of the W nanostructured layer was obtained from the comparison with the numerical calculation. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.