Nanoblog

The PhD work concerns experimental studies of plasma cleaning of so-called first mirrors for future fusion facilities, such as ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). First mirrors will play a crucial role in numerous ITER optical diagnostic systems. Deposition of material eroded from the wall of ITER can degrade the reflectivity of the first mirrors severely. Plasma cleaning using radio-frequency capacitively coupled plasmas is currently being considered as the most promising in-situ cleaning technique. The PhD work will mainly be focused on three different aspects of plasma cleaning for ITER first mirrors:

– Investigation on plasma cleaning in magnetic fields, benchmarked with simulations.
– Development of End of Cleaning Indicator (monitoring of the process).
– Research on driven grounded electrode plasma discharges.

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Project description. This project proposes a new approach that could overcome some of these current limitations: to develop a methodology for the construction of multi-sites ArMs based on the controlled assembly of small de novo peptidic bricks (“molecular Lego”, see scheme). The bricks are accessible by peptide synthesis, rendering their functionalization at a single site straightforward. Upon assembly of several units, a more complex structure (protein-like) will be obtained, placing the different functional centers at a desired distance to work in concert. One could then rationally design complex ArMs simply by assembling those bricks. To our knowledge, no such system exists yet. […]