The removal of ion implanted deuterium from tungsten and stainless steel by transferred-arc cleaning

Tungsten and stainless steel samples have been ion implanted with deuterium in an accelerator to simulate hydrogen isotope ion implantation conditions in magnetic confinement fusion devices. The samples were characterized by ion beam analysis both before and after cleaning to determine deuterium concentrations present. The extent of transferred-arc (TA) cleaning was varied to determine the deuterium removal efficiency, surface roughening and sample erosion rate. The deuterium content was greatly reduced by the cleaning thus demonstrating the possibility of using the TA cleaning technique for removing deuterium from components exposed to D-T fuels.