Beryllium (Be) is a strong candidate as plasma-facing material for the main wall of future fusion reactors. Thus, its erosion plays a key role in predicting the reactor's life-time and viability. MD simulations can be a powerful tool to study Be behavior under high plasma particle flux.
In this work, beryllium sputtering due to D bombardment is studied using MD simulations. We have analyzed the fundamental mechanisms for Be erosion considering some important parameters that influence the outcome, such as particle flux and surface temperature. It is shown that the Be erosion yield is strongly dependent on the surface temperature and its dependency on the particle flux is negligible. We also show that different species of Be molecules can be sputtered from its surface, mainly due to swift chemical sputtering mechanism.
