Radio-frequency plasma to clean ITER front-end diagnostic mirrors in geometry of Edge Thomson Scattering system

Abstract

The ITER Edge Thomson scattering (ETS) system provides electron temperature and density profile measurements in the ITER tokamak for plasma control. In collection optics, the front-end metallic first and second mirrors are expected to experience contamination with beryllium and tungsten degrading performance. Plasma cleaning based on a low-pressure radiofrequency discharge is expected to sputter contaminants. In the ETS, a water-cooled first mirror is combined with a powered electrode. Water cooling was realized as a notch filter for the driving frequency, and the electrode was grounded for a DC- voltage. A new breadboard reproducing the ETS mirror geometry was developed for experimental modelling. The notch filter uses equivalent cables. To understand the cleaning effect, ion energies and fluxes were measured in 40-50 MHz discharges in argon and helium at 1-10 Pa with and without the notch filter. Without a notch filter with minimum power losses, 2-4·1018 ions·m-2s-1 ion fluxes with energies of 100-140 eV were produced. With the notch filter, the peak ion energies were 30-50 eV. The power in the plasma was lower than 50 W with ion fluxes of – 1.5-1.9 1018 ions·m-2s-1. 53-m-long cable feeds equivalent to those of a real system were studied at 13-50 MHz and produced significant power loss: more than 95% at 40-50 MHz. A pre-matching element is essential to reduce power losses. A lower radiofrequency may be less sensitive to pre-matching and may be considered for mirrors without water cooling. A 40 MHz discharge is proposed for cleaning due to better stability, higher ion energies and possibly better uniformity. Powers in plasma in the range of hundreds of Watts may be needed to achieve ion fluxes suitable for cleaning. This requires more powerful components and shall be addressed in later experiments. The results are important for plasma cleaning in ETS and in other diagnostics where water-cooled first mirrors are used.