Behavior of high temperature liquid surfaces in contact with plasma

The erosion rate of liquid lithium samples exposed to plasma bombardment has been studied in PISCES-B. The temperature dependence of the erosion yield from liquid samples exhibits an enhancement beyond that expected from a combination of physical sputtering and evaporation. The enhancement is observed during either deuterium or helium plasma exposure and is observed to depend linearly on the incident ion flux. The onset of the enhanced erosion coincides with a decrease in the ejection energy of particles from the sample, indicating that the enhancement is due to an increase in evaporation from the sample. The implications of these results on the implementation of a liquid plasma-facing component are discussed.