Long pulse D2 and N2 seeded discharges on the upper actively cooled tungsten divertor of WEST

A series of L-mode discharges in upper single null configuration with more than 30 s duration were performed in the WEST tokamak with the strike line on actively cooled tungsten-coated divertor components. This series of discharges accumulated 20 min of plasma and a strike point fluence of $\approx 2\times {10}^{25}\,{{\rm{m}}}^{-2}$ in two days of operation in attached conditions. The discharges showed good density control, no tungsten accumulation and overall very benign thermal behaviour of the upper divertor. A subset of the discharges were seeded with nitrogen either in the divertor or midplane region to study plasma–wall interaction and associated ammonia formation in this weakly pumped scenario with all-tungsten plasma-facing components. While ammonia signals remained too weak for useful analysis, a strong dependence of nitrogen plasma penetration efficiency and residence time on the injection location was found. This hints towards a currently underestimated plasma-near nitrogen reservoir in these tokamak discharges in divertor configuration.