The adhesion of tungsten dust on plasma-exposed tungsten surfaces

Abstract

The adhesion of tungsten dust is measured on plasma-exposed and non-exposed tungsten substrates with the electrostatic detachment method. Tungsten substrates of comparable surface roughness have been exposed to the deuterium plasmas of the GyM linear device and the argon plasmas of rf glow discharges under conditions which invariably modify the surface composition due to physical sputtering. The adhesion has been systematically characterized for different spherical nearly monodisperse dust populations. Independent of the dust size, an approximate 50% post-exposure reduction of the average and spread of the adhesive force has been consistently observed and attributed to surface chemistry modifications. Keywords: Dust adhesion, Pull-off force, Dust remobilization, Electrostatic detachment, Adsorbates, Sputtering