Impulse Coatings for Application in Reactor Unprotected Surfaces (ICARUS)

Application of liquid lithium in devices is often limited by the incompatibility of lithium with required materials. One common example is copper, which has a wide array of uses in fusion devices. The Impulse Coatings for Application in Reactor Unprotected Surfaces (ICARUS) experiment at the Center for Plasma-Material Interactions, aims to develop metallic coatings for vulnerable surfaces to make them more robust against lithium exposure. This would allow for use of lithium in previously non-compatible environments. ICARUS allows for the rapid testing of a variety of coating recipes and coating materials. High-power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS) is the leading method for developing dense, well adherent coatings on metallic substrates. ICARUS employs both HiPIMS as the coating technique (with the ability to control ion energy and sample temperature) and pre-treatment methods (plasma cleaning and etching) to develop advanced lithium-resistant coatings.