Effect of He on D retention in W exposed to low-energy, high-fluence (D, He, Ar) mixture plasmas

W targets are exposed at fixed temperature in the range similar to 420-1100 K, to either pure D-2, D-2-delta He (0.1 < delta < 0.25), or D-2-delta He-gamma Ar (gamma = 0.03) mixture plasma, or He pretreatment plasma followed by exposure to D-2 plasma. A strong reduction in D retention is found for exposure temperature above 450 K and incident He-ion fluence exceeding similar to 10(24) m(-2). Reduced D retention values lie well below that measured on D-2 plasma-exposed reference targets, and the scatter in retention values reported in the literature. A small level of Ar admixture to D-2-0.1He plasma, leading to an Ar ion density fraction of similar to 3%, is found to have minimal effect on the D inventory reduction caused by He. In targets with reduced inventory, nuclear-reaction analysis reveals shallow D trapping (< 50 nm), in the same locale as nanometre-sized bubbles observed using transmission electron microscopy. It is suggested that near-surface bubbles grow and interconnect, forming pathways leading back to the plasma-material interaction surface, thereby interrupting transport to the bulk and reducing D retention.