Advances in plasma–wall interaction control for H-mode operation over 100 s with ITER-like tungsten divertor on EAST

A total power injection up to 0.3 GJ has been achieved in EAST long pulse H-mode operation of 101.2 s with an ITER-like water-cooled tungsten (W) mono-block divertor, which has steady-state power exhaust capability of 10 MWm⁻². The peak temperature of W target saturated at 12 s to the value T ∼ 500 °C with a heat flux ∼3.3 MW m⁻² being maintained during the discharge. By tailoring the 3D divertor plasma footprint through edge magnetic topology change, the heat load was broadly dispersed and thus peak heat flux and W sputtering were well controlled. Active feedback control of H-mode detachment with D₂ fuelling or divertor impurity seeding has been achieved successfully, with excellent compatibility with the core plasma performance. Active feedback control of radiative power utilizing neon seeding was achieved with f _rad  =  18%–41% in H-mode operation, exhibiting potential for heat flux reduction with divertor and edge radiation. This has been further demonstrated in DIII-D high β _P H-mode scenario within the joint DIII-D/EAST experiment using impurity seeding from the divertor volume. Steady-state particle control and impurity exhaust has been achieved for long pulse H-mode operation over 100 s with the W divertor by leveraging the effect of drifts and optimized divertor configuration, coupled with strong pumping and extensive wall conditioning. Approaches toward the reduction of divertor W sourcing, which is of crucial importance for a metal-wall tokamak, are also explored. These advances provide important experimental information on favourable core-edge integration for high power, long-pulse H-mode operation in EAST, ITER and CFETR. (paper)