Effect of He on D retention in W exposed to low-energy, high-fluence (D, He, Ar) mixture plasmas

W targets are exposed at fixed temperature in the range ∼420–1100 K, to either pure D2, D2–δHe (0.1 < δ < 0.25), or D2–δHe–γAr (γ = 0.03) mixture plasma, or He pretreatment plasma followed by exposure to D2 plasma. A strong reduction in D retention is found for exposure temperature above 450 K and incident He-ion fluence exceeding ∼1024 m−2. Reduced D retention values lie well below that measured on D2 plasma-exposed reference targets, and the scatter in retention values reported in the literature. A small level of Ar admixture to D2–0.1He plasma, leading to an Ar ion density fraction of ∼3%, is found to have minimal effect on the D inventory reduction caused by He. In targets with reduced inventory, nuclear-reaction analysis reveals shallow D trapping (<50 nm), in the same locale as nanometre-sized bubbles observed using transmission electron microscopy. It is suggested that near-surface bubbles grow and interconnect, forming pathways leading back to the plasma–material interaction surface, thereby interrupting transport to the bulk and reducing D retention.