Resistance to deuterium-induced blistering in laminated microstructure tungsten

Abstract

Tungsten (W) is a promising candidate for plasma-facing materials in fusion reactors; however, its application is hindered by challenges such as blistering. This study proposes a laminated microstructure W design, developed by stacking warm-rolled W foils with thicknesses of 0.05 mm and 0.1 mm. The plasma-exposed surface exhibited a strong preferential [110] orientation, nanoscale grains, and grain boundaries oriented perpendicular to the surface, in addition to interlayer gaps between the foils. Laminated samples, composed of laminated microstructure W and 2.5 mm thick warm-rolled and recrystallized W bulks, were fabricated and exposed to deuterium plasma at a flux of 3 × 10²⁰ ions m^-2s⁻¹, with fluences of 1 × 10²⁵ ions m⁻² and 5 × 10²⁵ ions m⁻². The results demonstrated that the laminated microstructure W exhibits superior resistance to blistering. Furthermore, laminated W foils were successfully brazed onto a Cu substrate, validating the feasibility of manufacturing laminated W plasma-facing component (PFC). These findings indicate that laminated W-based PFC represent a promising design strategy for improving the irradiation tolerance of PFC under fusion reactor conditions.