The diploma thesis of student Petr Králíček (FME CTU) placed second in the competition organized by Zvoníček Foundation, which awards the best graduate theses of the past academic year.
The thesis “Chromium and tungsten-chromium deposits by RF-ICP for nuclear fusion” was carried
out at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the CAS under the supervision of Jan Čížek from the
Department of Materials Engineering.
The thesis dealt with the innovation of protective coatings for use in thermonuclear reactors,
currently designed from pure tungsten. However, due to its properties (especially the inability of
surface passivation), pure W coatings would not suffice in the event of LOCA (loss of coolant)
accident. For these cases, a concept has been introduced in this thesis where a proportion of
chromium is added to the tungsten coatings, which could prevent the sputtering of activated
material from the inner wall of the reactor by the passivation process. The work succeeded in
fabricating demonstration W-Cr coatings of sufficient thickness and with good adhesion to the steel
substrate, an initial step towards the planned optimization by post-processing.
Source: IPP.
9 Dec 2023
