In situ chemical imaging of lithiated tungsten using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

Abstract Lithium conditioning can significantly improve the plasma confinement of EAST tokamak by reducing the amount of hydrogen and impurities recycled from the wall, but the details of this mechanism and approaches that reduce the concentrations of hydrogen and impurities recycle still remain unclear. In this paper, we studied lithiated tungsten via a cascaded-arc plasma simulator. An in situ laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) diagnostic system has been developed to chemically image the three-dimensional distribution of lithium and impurities on the surface of lithiated tungsten co-deposition layer for the first time. The results indicate that lithium has a strong ability to draw hydrogen and oxygen. The impurity components from the co-deposition processes present more intensity on the surface of co-deposition layer. This work improves the understanding of lithiated tungsten mechanism and is useful for using LIBS as a wall-diagnostic technique for EAST.