Improved liquid lithium surfaces in the Lithium Tokamak Experiment-β

• High performance LTX-β tokamak plasmas fully surrounded by mirror-like liquid lithium. • Improved techniques throughout 5 years in vacuum led to cleaner liquid Li surfaces. • Good plasma performance with liquid Li matches solid Li without operational problems. • LTX-β is the only tokamak worldwide operated while fully surrounded by liquid metal. • Liquid metals could survive fusion plasmas that damage or destroy solid materials. • Important step to show feasibility of low-recycling liquid Li approach to fusion. • Low-recycling liquid Li could greatly improve confinement without ∇ T turbulence. Advances in vacuum, surface, and lithium conditioning techniques throughout five years of continuous operations in LTX-β have produced mirror-like liquid lithium surfaces and demonstrated the feasibility of high-performance tokamak discharges fully surrounded by liquid metal without significant operational problems. Improvements in conditioning techniques and procedures, including many weeks of baking and accumulation of 70 g of Li, led to reduced residual gasses and clean Li surfaces − all while still maintaining enough operational flexibility for multiple in-vacuum diagnostic upgrades and calibrations. Coatings had a visibly clean appearance, with reflective liquid metal demonstrating good wetting and surface adhesion with films that were now macroscopically thick. Solidified Li showed large crystal grains, while surface science measurements observed reduced impurities in the lithium. Steadily improved plasma performance was achieved with liquid lithium, with discharges able to match solid Li in terms of evolution of I p and n e , including rapid density pumping indicating low recycling. There were indications of moderately increased Li impurity influx, though few significant disturbances by the large liquid surfaces on tokamak operations over hundreds of discharges. Liquid metal plasma facing components are a potential solution to the extreme heat and particle fluxes that could cause unacceptable damage to solid materials, while liquid lithium also has the potential for greatly increased confinement in the low-recycling regime. While many liquid metal approaches are possible, and numerous experiments have been conducted in test stands and small modules in fusion devices, LTX-β is the only tokamak operated while fully surrounded by liquid metal.