Plasma Response to Lithium-Coated Plasma-Facing Components in the National Spherical Torus Experiment

摘要

Experiments in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) have shown beneficial effects on the performance of divertor plasmas as a result of applying lithium coatings on the graphite and carbonfiber- composite plasma-facing components. These coatings have mostly been applied by a pair of lithium evaporators mounted at the top of the vacuum vessel which inject collimated streams of lithium vapor towards the lower divertor. In NBI-heated, deuterium H-mode plasmas run immediately after the application of lithium, performance modifications included decreases in the plasma density, particularly in the edge, and inductive flux consumption, and increases in the electron and ion temperatures and the energy confinement time. Reductions in the number and amplitude of ELMs were observed, including complete ELM suppression for periods up to 1.2 s, apparently as a result of altering the stability of the edge. However, in the plasmas where ELMs were suppressed, there was a significant secular increase in the effective ion charge Zeff and the radiated power as a result of increases in the carbon and medium-Z metallic impurities, although not of lithium itself which remained at a very low level in the plasma core,