STUDIES ON PLASMA-SURFACE INTERACTION IN THE STELLARATOR W7-AS

The analysis of long term collector samples has given information on wall erosion by ion sputtering in W7-AS. There is strong indication that this erosion occurred during high iota-discharges which are separatrix-dominated by 5/n island chains. Langmuir and calorimeter probe measurements have demonstrated that in this case particle and heat fluxes leave the plasma locally with high densities. Erosion of limiter surfaces measured post-mortem can be satisfactorily correlated with results from measurements with flush mounted limiter probes. Measurements with a moveable collector probe have shown that the plasma impurity contamination by limiter material is higher after wall boronization in limiter-dominated discharges. This is explained by less contamination of the limiter surface after removal of the boronization layer from the limiter surface. On the basis of a simple 1D-impurity transport model a comparison of Langmuir and collector probe measurements with spectroscopic measurements in the core plasma was made, supporting this hypothesis.