Erosion of beryllium by oxygen

Beryllium has been seriously considered as a plasma-facing material because of its low Z, favourable thermomechanical properties and expected low tritium retention. However, erosion by plasma and impurities is another important issue in assessing its suitability for this application. An experimental study of sputtering of beryllium by O+ was conducted for energies between 100 and 10000 eV and target temperatures from 300 to 1000 K. The erosion yield at, for example, an energy of 100 eV is around 9x10-2, while for 3000 eV it is as high as 5x10-1 at room temperature. The experimental results on the erosion yields due to oxygen as a function of the energy and target temperature are reported and discussed. These are compared with analyses made with the TRIM-SP computer code. (orig.)