Abstract
The article presents the results of a study of the structure modification and erosion of tungsten and molybdenum surfaces under plasma irradiation. It was revealed that during irradiation of the samples, a change in the surface is observed as a growth of the relief as a result of non-uniform etching of the surface. Metallographic analysis showed that when irradiating samples of tungsten with T=1000 °C and 1500 °C, the degree of relief development is low compared with a sample of tungsten irradiated at T=700 °C. It was determined that the greatest increase in roughness in samples irradiated at T=1500 °C, which is associated with the formation of small cracks in the surface layer. It is determined that appreciable erosion of the samples of tungsten and molybdenum by irradiation with plasma streams that simulated the stationary regime of the plasma occurs only at relatively high temperatures of the target. It is found that the size of cracks increases with increasing ion energy from 1.5 keV up to 2 keV. It was found that as a result of irradiating tungsten with a stationary plasma, etching pits in the size from 100 nm to 500 nm are formed in the grain body, and when irradiated with an accelerating potential of 1.6 keV, a large number of small pores ranging in size from 0.2 μm to 1.0 μm are formed as a result of surface etching.