Nonlinear impact of the porous nanostructure on the net tungsten erosion in the linear plasma device PISCES-A

The tungsten fuzz growth under non-erosive and erosive helium plasmas in the linear plasma device PISCES-A has been investigated by experiments and simulations. The simulation results benchmarked against the experimental measurements indicate a decayed net physical sputtering yield during fuzz growth under the erosive helium plasma. Further, a nonlinear dependence of the net tungsten erosion on the ‘effective’ porous nanostructure that can be sputtered by incident helium particles has been found.