Single-crystal and polycrystalline diamond erosion studies in Pilot-PSI

TL;DR

This study investigates the erosion of single-crystal and polycrystalline diamond surfaces in hydrogen plasma, measuring chemical sputtering yields and analyzing surface structural changes across various temperatures relevant to fusion reactor applications.

Contribution

It provides the first precise measurements of chemical sputtering yields of diamond in hydrogen plasma at different temperatures, combining ex-situ analysis, in-situ spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations.

Findings

Maximum erosion yield of 1.5×10⁻² at/ion at 900°C

Yields for diamond are comparable to graphite

XPS shows amorphization within 1 nm depth

Abstract

Diamond is a promising candidate for enhancing the negative-ion surface production in the ion sources for neutral injection in fusion reactors; hence evaluation of its reactivity towards hydrogen plasma is of high importance. High quality PECVD single crystal and polycrystalline diamond samples were exposed in Pilot-PSI with the D + flux of (4-7)$\times$10 24 m-2 s-1 and the impact energy of 7-9 eV per deuteron at different surface temperatures; under such conditions physical sputtering is negligible, however chemical sputtering is important. Net chemical sputtering yield $Y = 9.7\times 10^{-3}$ at/ion at 800$^\circ$C was precisely measured ex-situ using a protective platinum mask (5x10x2 $\mu$m) deposited beforehand on a single crystal followed by the post-mortem analysis using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). The structural properties of the exposed diamond surface were analyzed by Raman spectroscopy and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). Gross chemical sputtering yields were determined in-situ by means of optical emission spectroscopy of the molecular CH AX band for several surface temperatures. We observed a bell shape dependence of the erosion yield versus temperature between 400$^\circ$C and 1200$^\circ$C, with a maximum yield of ~1.5$\times$10-2 at/ion attained at 900$^\circ$C. The yields obtained for diamond are relatively high $(0.51.5)\times 10^{-2}$ at/ion, comparable with those of graphite. XPS analyses show amorphization of diamond surface within 1 nm depth, in good agreement with molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. MD was also applied to study the hydrogen impact energy threshold for erosion of [100] diamond surface at different temperatures.