Improvements in recycling and impurity control obtained by divertor biasing

Experiments in which the divertor plates are biased with respect to the grounded vacuum chamber were conducted in the Tokamak de Varennes, with ohmic discharges and boronized walls. A comprehensive set of diagnostics was used and those effects relating to plasma-surface interactions and their consequences, namely recycling and impurity production, are reported here. The main conclusion is that the bias voltage actively controls the balance between the particle fluxes to the walls and the diverters, with a weak influence on the confinement. The quantities associated with plasma surface interactions, i.e. the impurity influx, the plasma contamination and the global recycling coefficient, increase as a function of the voltage applied between the plates and the wall. Typically, the quantities of interest vary by a factor of two or more in the range from -240 to 290 V. The poloidal fluxes to the upper or lower divertor are enhanced by negative or positive biasing, respectively, in agreement with the sign of the E*B drift. For negative biasing the reduction in the wall flux and increase in the poloidal flux combine to improve greatly the divertor efficiency: the divertor pressure and the impurity retention time are increased by factors of up to 5 and 8, respectively. The above effects, together with the SOL density profiles and the biasing current-voltage characteristic, are consistent with a model in which the radial transport in the SOL is limited by the ion mobility; a mobility of 0.04 m2/V.s is found. Besides allowing active density and impurity control, it is suggested that biasing could facilitate the attainment of a radiative divertor by injection of well retained impurities in the divertor