Deposition and re-erosion studies by means of local impurity injection in TEXTOR

Pioneering experiments to study local erosion and deposition processes have been carried out in TEXTOR by injecting 13C marked hydrocarbons (CH4 and C2H4) as well as silane (SiD4) and tungsten-hexafluoride (WF6) through test limiters exposed to the edge plasma. The influence of various limiter materials (C, W, Mo) and surface roughness, different geometries (spherical or roof-like) and local plasma parameters has been studied. Depending on these conditions the local deposition efficiency of injected species varies between 0.1% and 9% – the largest deposition has been found for 13CH4 injection through unpolished, spherical C test limiter and ohmic plasma conditions. The most striking result is that ERO modelling cannot reproduce these low deposition efficiencies using the common assumptions on sticking probabilities and physical and chemical re-erosion yields. As an explanation large re-erosion due to background plasma and possibly low “effective sticking” of returning species is applied. This has been interpreted as enhanced re-erosion of re-deposits under simultaneous impact of high ion fluxes from plasma background.